Jeff's Reviews

Thoughts on every movie I've ever seen.

Don’t Look Up (2021)

Directed by Adam McKay

Starring Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence

Author

Like McKay’s The Big Short, it straddles between being a dramatic story and a farce. Screaming rants by Mindy and Dibiasky, seriousness by Teddy, ominous scoring, and impressive visual effects make it seem like we should really care about what is potentially an end-of-the-world situation, but then idiotic, over-the-top behavior by many of the other characters reminds us that we shouldn’t care about any of this at all. Going both ways is confusing and uncomfortable to me, would have preferred if the treatment went more clearly one way or the other. In the end, it’s all more of a comment on mass media and modern-day right wing politics than the real-world science and politics of an existential crisis.

Fantastic cast. Leo is good as a nerd, but it’s brilliant performances by many of the other characters (Morgan, Rylance, Chalamet, Streep, Hill) that really impress. Hill’s got some really great lines.

Great visual effects in space, with some minor goofs that this amateur astronomy buff noticed. Unlikely the comet would have a tail when it was first discovered or even when it was passing Jupiter, and a shot of the comet burning up in the atmosphere is followed up by another shot of the comet before it reaches Earth. Also unlikely that a comet would have mineable metals and minerals, more likely if it was an asteroid.

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