#MovieReview: ‘Don’t Look Up’ is too preachy to be enjoyable

Adam McKay’s latest dramedy-cum-political satire Don’t Look Up, takes big swings but rarely in the right direction.

McKay has recently become known for mixing his comedy stylings with satire, first mocking the banks in The Big Short and then the Republican Party in Vice.

Both were successful in different ways, with The Big Short representing the high water mark of his career, expertly mixing fast-paced editing with high level economics in a way that layman audiences could follow.

In Don’t Look Up, however, where a world-ending meteor is heading for Earth, McKay plays down to his audience, rather than trusting them to follow the breadcrumbs he has left.

Despite one of the best casts in cinema history, the film’s comedy elements fall largely flat while its central message is so heavy handed it can be frustrating to watch.

Spoilers to follow

The film opens on small-time astronomer Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his graduate student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence).

Together, they discover a kilometres-wide meteor on a direct trajectory to Earth, set to hit in about 6 months from discovery.

Naturally, their first port of call is to report it to the authorities and president of the USA.

Unfortunately, president Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) – a thinly veiled Trump portmanteau – declines to take the threat seriously, choosing to focus on her low polling numbers and the upcoming elections.

The entire point of the film is to mock general world responses to existential but provable threats, like climate change, but it so consistently hits you over the head with it that the message becomes lost.

With evil tech billionaires, vacuous 24-hour news cycle presenters and ‘sheeple’ who debate the existence of the meteor at all, McKay hits out at all the familiar liberal targets.

Make no mistake, there are merits in criticising these groups, but when mocking them, the divide is only going to grow ever larger.

Left-leaners who have long been espousing the need for climate change legislation, big corporation control and trustworthy news sources will no doubt feel vindicated when watching Don’t Look Up, but those targeted are only going to feel attacked.

Another 2 hours of inaction and bad decisions leave the meteor on track, killing everyone on Earth besides a select few elites who have launched themselves into space to avoid the collision.

Ultimately, the super A-list cast mostly delivers, but almost nothing else does.

Don’t Look Up is so smug in its condescension that it fails to have any of the cultural impact that it clearly intended.

If you want to be preached to then this is a film for you, but otherwise it is perhaps worth scrolling further down your Netflix queue.

Rated 18 for scenes of nudity, strong language and violence.
1.5/5.

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