Don’t Look Up (2021)

Directed by Adam McKay. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Timothée Chalamet, Melanie Lynskey, Tyler Perry, Himesh Patel, Ariana Grande, Ron Perlman, Tomer Sisley. [R]

Astronomy grad student Lawrence discovers a large comet that’s on a doomsday collision course with Earth, but while trying to warn the planet of what’s coming, she and her professor (DiCaprio) quickly learn that common sense is in short supply when it comes to the sort of “inconvenient truth” that would make Al Gore feel sheepish. Writer/director/co-producer McKay’s caustic but heavy-handed script prefers a saturation bombing approach, taking aim at clueless politicians, narcissistic celebrities, greedy tech giants, gullible citizens, and plenty more; the running joke for much of the first half being that nearly everyone they encounter is too stupid and/or self-absorbed to realize the immense gravity of the situation (um, no physics pun intended?), and the distracted masses simply don’t care. But even as the thrust of its attack mutates, the film still keeps hitting the same points again and again with hardly any tonal variance: media and politics have turned our society into a court of fools, the super-rich will go to any lengths to exploit us, and we are all doomed for it. But don’t worry—it’s remarkably reassuring for its target audience, telling them that so long as they get the joke, they’re one of the few smart and compassionate ones. The cast is certainly stacked, but for every performer who “read the assignment” (Hill as the president’s hilariously impudent son-slash-Chief-of-Staff), at least one other goes wasted or misses the mark (Rylance’s weird and off-putting billionaire CEO). Chris Evans and Sarah Silverman make cameo appearances.

56/100