Don’t Look Up

Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” is a PSA first and a movie second, and it isn’t good in either regard

By: Griffin Jacobs

I have never called a film “preachy,” not even “Sorry to Bother You” or “A Clockwork Orange,” films with politics central to their plots. “Don’t Look Up,” however, is annoyingly preachy. Unlike the films mentioned above, it’s a political allegory first, and a story last. 

The plot centers on a group of scientists who discover a comet headed towards Earth. They attempt to warn the planet and inspire action to save Earth from impending doom. An incompetent government refuses to give the comet any attention and corporations attempt to milk it for profit. Despite the climate never being mentioned, it’s obviously a metaphor for climate change. That’s why the film is so frustrating: it clearly promotes a message, yet its plot explains why that promotion is futile.

It isn’t just lousy as a political allegory. It’s also an incredibly boring and poorly made film. Many of the casting choices feel like they were made solely to add names to the poster. The subplots are completely superfluous, namely, the relationships struck up by each of the two main characters. It’s a comedy that’s almost never funny. The only saving graces are occasional quips from Jonah Hill and Timothée Chalamet.

I think that reviewer Matt Hoffman said it best: the film is like “if the Gal Gadot ‘Imagine’ video was 3 hours long.” Self-aggrandizing celebrities saying “we get it,” the difference being the “Imagine” video didn’t cost $75 million and waste 145 minutes of my time.