Directing: C+
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B
Editing: C+

Don’t Look Up is a little on the nose. Scratch that, it’s a lot on the nose. Still, I got several good laughs out of it, although those laughs were consistently bittersweet, betraying a quick realization of the depressing basis of the humor.

Responses to this movie have been quite evenly mixed, and once you see the movie—if you see the movie—it’s easy to see why. Some of those who praise it have compared it to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire masterpiece Doctor Strangelove, and frankly, anyone who makes such a comparison instantly loses credibility. It does beg the question, though: does satire even work anymore? The most successful satire of the past, from decades to centuries ago, have gleaned humor from subtle exaggerations of absurdist potential. These days, real life is far more absurd than any legitimate attempt at satire can even imagine.

Arguably, that’s the very point writer-director Adam McKay is making. In the face of imminent disaster, this actually is the way people behave. But, why bother making a movie out of it? Are we meant to be entertained by an accurate reflection of how easily manipulated the world’s populations really are, even when what they are told runs directly contrary to what’s right in front of their eyes?

This film’s title is itself a literal reference to the irony of people happily acting against their own best wishes, just taken to the extreme. When a planet-killing comet is finally visible to the naked eye in the sky, and the scientists struggling to be believed (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) plead with people to “Just look up!”, Meryl Streep’s Trumpian President Orlean holds rallies in which she quite easily convinces people “Don’t look up!” These crowds, the long-disrespected “working class,” should keep their heads down and get their jobs done.

And the kicker of it is, absolutely none of this is a stretch. This movie was conceived as a metaphor for climate change and how much we all blithely go about our business as though everything is fine. The unexpected onset of a viral pandemic only put its themes into even sharper relief, making McKay’s reflections even more accurate than he could have predicted, particularly when it comes to the swift polarization and politicization of a global problem that has nothing to do with politics. It’s a curious thought experiment, to wonder how much better Don’t Look Up might have played had the pandemic never happened, and all it made us think about it was as a metaphor for climate change. Instead, numerous details feel like a direct metaphor for how the pandemic has played out instead. And then, principal photography was first delayed by COVID, and then it occurred in the middle of it.

It’s also fascinating how, even though this movie is packed with movie stars, the real star of this production is Adam McKay himself. Most people aren’t seeking this movie out just because of the actors that are in it, but because of the nature and tone of the film, and who directed it. This is the guy who first brought us the Anchorman movies and later both The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018), in more recent years increasingly preoccupied with movies that have something to say. The results have been mixed, and although it’s not on a steep curve, over time it’s been diminishing returns. In the case of Vice, for example, it was a movie with a lot to recommend it, except for its greatest flaw, which was to tell the story of horrible people. That sort of thing loses its appeal pretty quickly.

And, such is the problem with Don’t Look Up as well. Not only is it about the despair that comes with living in a world run by horrible people, it serves as a reminder that such is the world we actually live in. The two main protagonists, Michigan State University astronomy professor Dr. Randall Mindy and MSU doctoral candidate in astronomy Kate Dibiasky, are among the few decent characters here. When they discover a comet and find foolproof calculations indicating a direct hit with Earth in about six months (I would be interested in how sound the science actually is in this script), they are predictably dismissed, and then forced to go on a media tour on which they face people who don’t even seem to know how to take them seriously.

There’s something slightly off about DiCaprio’s and Lawrence’s performances. Their acting is decent enough, but a far cry from what we’ve seen them do in other films. Again, this likely traces back to Adam McKay, who is the real star here, offering us characteristically snappy editing and a sprinkling of clever gags. All the while the actors seem to be just along for the ride. DiCaprio’s Randall Mindy is written as a man paralyzed by a multitude of mental and anxiety disorders; Lawrence’s Dibiasky is characterized as a bit of a young hipster, in a way that never quite feels fully authentic. It doesn’t help that she sports a terrible haircut with unfortunate micro bangs. DiCaprio, for his part, plays against type as a bit of an insecure frump, but give that it’s him, it’s hard to believe him as the character. Nearly all of the rest of the star-studded cast in much smaller parts, from Cate Blanchett to Jonah Hill (who is the best part of this movie) to even Mark Rylance as a Zuckerberg-type tech billionaire, among others to numerous to name, comes across as more genuine characters.

There’s also the run time of Don’t Look Up, which is two hours and 18 minutes—at minimum, twenty minutes too long. With some better finessing in the editing room, I might have liked this movie a lot more. McKay needs to decide whether this is a disaster drama or a satirical comedy, and the movie never quite settles on one or the other. It ends with a sequence that comes close to being actually moving, but the storytelling is so halfhearted up to that point that it isn’t earned.

In other words, Don’t Look Up is a work of relative mediocrity that lacks clarity as to what it wants us to get out of it. It never lost my attention, I’ll give it that; I was entertained enough for a couple of hours on the couch in my living room. The greatest irony is how quickly forgotten it will be, and how the very act of watching this movie qualifies as the very kind of time- and resource-wasting bullshit we all spend our time with rather than actually doing something to make the world better. This is a movie preaching to a choir which itself is only half-interested. It lends an air of disingenuousness, which I think may be my biggest problem with it. There’s nothing to illuminate us here, nothing provocative that has not already been retread ad nauseam. Don’t Look Up is either a film of unearned self-importance, or it’s just trafficking in cynicism as entertainment. And why go to so much effort just to be cynical? It’s exhausting.

Granted, you can watch this movie and not be exhausted by it, so long as you choose not to spend your time thinking critically. In which case, you’re the very person the movie is making fun of. But, to what end?

*When the world is ending, you’ll want to go shopping. Oh and Timothée Chalamet is in this too.*

Overall: C+