Review | Netflix movie review: Don’t Look Up – Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence try to save the world in star-studded tragicomic satire
- Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence discover that a comet is coming for Earth – but the gravity of the situation is lost on a celebrity-obsessed world
- Adam McKay’s Netflix film Don’t Look Up is an amusing tragi-farce that’s bleak, knowing and hilarious – and the all-star cast is nothing short of sensational
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4/5 stars
Adam McKay’s all-star Netflix film Don’t Look Up comes packaged with a premise typical of many a Hollywood disaster movie: a giant comet is heading towards Earth to wreak apocalyptic destruction. It’s the sort of plot device we’ve seen in everything from Armageddon and Deep Impact to the recent Greenland with Gerard Butler.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays astronomer Dr Randall Mindy and Jennifer Lawrence co-stars as graduate student Kate Dibiasky, who discovers that a comet somewhere between five and 10 kilometres (3-6 miles) wide is on a direct collision course with Earth in six months’ time.
Immediately they take their findings to the White House, where President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic chief of staff Jason (Jonah Hill) seem more interested in accumulating votes than the scientists’ cataclysmic news.
With the help of Dr Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), the one senior official who takes them seriously, they set out on a media tour to alert the public. Soon, they’re on television morning show The Daily Rep, hosted by the polished but cynical Brie (Cate Blanchett) and her co-host, Jack (Tyler Perry).
But in a world where celebrity culture rules, the gravity of the situation is lost. Instead, Mindy goes viral, becoming “America’s sexiest scientist”, while Dibiasky is vilified.
Inspired by everything from Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove to media satire Network, McKay rolls it all into a very amusing tragi-farce. The cast is nothing short of sensational, with Mark Rylance, as a Steve Jobs-like tech genius who plans to profit from the comet, particularly brilliant.
There are also roles for singers Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi as musicians whose on-off affair has diverted global attention away from the comet. Timothée Chalamet pops up as a skate-punk dude who has the hots for Kate, while Ron Perlman rocks as a gung-ho astronaut.
While the starry ensemble cast can get distracting, McKay maintains equilibrium, keeping the story sharply in focus at the end of his telescope. It’s also a perfect reflection on our pandemic times, not least when a section of the public doubts the presence of the comet – uncannily like some conspiracy theorists denying the existence of the coronavirus.
Bleak, knowing and hilarious, Don’t Look Up is unerringly on the nose.
Don’t Look Up will start streaming on Netflix on December 24.
