Don't Look Up (2021)
Directed by Adam McKay
Two astronomers go on a media tour to warn humankind of a planet-killing comet hurtling toward Earth. The response from a distracted world: Meh.
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19 films that influenced Don't Look Up
What critics say influenced Don't Look Up
McKay was clearly inspired by classics in the genre from Dr. Strangelove, which turned nuclear war into comedy, to Network and Wag the Dog among other fondly-remembered gems we now recognize weren’t far off from getting at some real truths.
But The Big Short and Vice could also be furious, frothing-at-the-mouth diatribes, laden with self-righteousness that resembled unironic homages to Sidney Lumet’s Network.
As well as the aforementioned Strangelove and Armageddon , Don’t Look Up also has echoes of Deep Impact , Network , Wag the Dog , Bob Roberts and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, as banging their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy – and a divided public, some of whom believe it all to be a massive conspiracy theory – takes its toll on the protagonists.
One scene has a panel of science deniers claim: “They want you to look up, so they can look down on you!” Watching DiCaprio have his full Peter Finch in “Network” moment: (“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”) had me rolling out of my seat.
As the leads, DiCaprio and Lawrence both get plenty of time to shine, with DiCaprio, in particular, giving a Network -level monologue that’s quite entertaining.
While wildly aware that Don’t Look Up is absolutely a political satire that applies a dash of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Network (1976), and Wag the Dog (1997) with a nice helping of Armageddon (1998), the way in which an extinction-level event serves as the metaphor for climate crisis doesn’t always land because of the ever-present concern of COVID-19 and its variants.
McKay was clearly inspired by classics in the genre from Dr. Strangelove, which turned nuclear war into comedy, to Network and Wag the Dog among other fondly-remembered gems we now recognize weren’t far off from getting at some real truths.
As well as the aforementioned Strangelove and Armageddon , Don’t Look Up also has echoes of Deep Impact , Network , Wag the Dog , Bob Roberts and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, as banging their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy – and a divided public, some of whom believe it all to be a massive conspiracy theory – takes its toll on the protagonists.
While wildly aware that Don’t Look Up is absolutely a political satire that applies a dash of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Network (1976), and Wag the Dog (1997) with a nice helping of Armageddon (1998), the way in which an extinction-level event serves as the metaphor for climate crisis doesn’t always land because of the ever-present concern of COVID-19 and its variants.
As well as the aforementioned Strangelove and Armageddon , Don’t Look Up also has echoes of Deep Impact , Network , Wag the Dog , Bob Roberts and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, as banging their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy – and a divided public, some of whom believe it all to be a massive conspiracy theory – takes its toll on the protagonists.
Don’t Look Up is essentially Deep Impact played for yuks, Armageddon if it had a brain.
We are jolted along by an end-of-days blockbuster like “Deep Impact” (the art-house-inclined can throw in “Melancholia”) but also swept up in a behind-the-scenes realpolitik farce like “Dr.
Unlike disaster films like Deep Impact and Armageddon , nobody in the presidential administration gives a damn.
As seen in Armageddon , Deep Impact , Independence Day, and so forth, the scientist discovers the doomsday maker, and the attention slowly shifts to the “real” heroes: the brawny brave astronauts tasked with saving the planet.
As executed, “Don’t Look Up” plays like the leftie answer to “Armageddon” — which is to say, it ditches the Bruckheimer approach of assembling a bunch of blue-collar heroes to rocket out to space and nuke the approaching comet, opting instead to spotlight the apathy, incompetence and financial self-interest of all involved (including Mark Rylance’s Sir Peter Isherwell, an extreme Asperger’s case — and campaign mega-donor — who combines elements of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Richard Branson to uniquely irritating effect).
Rather than a pandemic-level virus that continues to mutate because of political and partisan ineptitude, McKay goes Armageddon with an extinction-level comet heading straight for Earth.
Then there’s a creepy, world-famous tech visionary (Mark Rylance, unfortunately hitting some tone-deaf notes in a distractingly strange performance), who has a grand plan for mining the comet for its trillions of dollars in valuable raw materials and THEN blowing it up, “Armageddon” style.
While wildly aware that Don’t Look Up is absolutely a political satire that applies a dash of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Network (1976), and Wag the Dog (1997) with a nice helping of Armageddon (1998), the way in which an extinction-level event serves as the metaphor for climate crisis doesn’t always land because of the ever-present concern of COVID-19 and its variants.
Don’t Look Up is essentially Deep Impact played for yuks, Armageddon if it had a brain.
On another, it’s a quite brilliant pastiche of the Hollywood movies of the mid-to-late ‘90s ( Armageddon is firmly in film-maker Adam McKay and his team’s sights) when it was believed that any external threat could be solved by the President and someone willing to make “the ultimate sacrifice”.
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The fusion of star-studded satire, science-fiction, and apocalyptic doom begins to recall Richard Kelly’s recently reclaimed Bush-era cult classic Southland Tales , yet the difference between the two feels instructive.
Granted, it’s better than the self-satisfied Vice by a huge margin, but it still doesn’t excuse the sanded-down Southland Tales we’ve been given here.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Themes
While wildly aware that Don’t Look Up is absolutely a political satire that applies a dash of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Network (1976), and Wag the Dog (1997) with a nice helping of Armageddon (1998), the way in which an extinction-level event serves as the metaphor for climate crisis doesn’t always land because of the ever-present concern of COVID-19 and its variants.
Perfectly pitched and terrifically timed at the end of a year in which the war against truth intensified and the climate crisis facing humanity was made even more explicit than before, Don’t Look Up is likely to go down as this generation’s Dr. Strangelove .
Bearing similarities to Dr. Strangelove and Network , but without their comedic nimbleness, Don’t Look Up bears unmistakable allusions to the world’s present pandemic crisis.
They’re rational thinkers who unwittingly stumble into a Dr. Strangelove type of situation when they discover mankind’s impending doom, and team up with Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) to report their findings to President Orlean (Meryl Streep).
The reductive dramaturgy feels perfectly represented in DiCaprio’s character monologuing about how “the President is lying” on television, which ultimately is closer to the treacly liberalism of, say, Rob Reiner’s Shock and Awe than the edge of the aforementioned Southland Tales or even the holy grail of Dr. Strangelove .
There were films like “The Towering Inferno” and “Earthquake,” the kind of exercises in star power where you would think, hey, that’s O.J. Simpson as the head of security.
As well as the aforementioned Strangelove and Armageddon , Don’t Look Up also has echoes of Deep Impact , Network , Wag the Dog , Bob Roberts and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, as banging their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy – and a divided public, some of whom believe it all to be a massive conspiracy theory – takes its toll on the protagonists.
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Thankfully, the results aren’t akin to Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, and it all works quite a bit better than what some may be expected.
This film has talent on the same level as It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World while reaching satire at the levels of both Dr. Strangelove and Network .