Mindy and Dibiasky then take their message to the media, but the platform is a banter-heavy morning show (hosted by vacuous characters played by Perry and Blanchett) where the producers try to smooth their story into a cutesy scientific discovery in between the aforementioned Grande incident. Only one of the astronomers makes it out of the studio appearance without turning into a national meme—and no one takes their screed seriously—but it sets them on contrasting paths of popularity, becoming the media distraction themselves. Credit to moments when the chaos of “Don’t Look Up” feels inspired, watching Leonardo DiCaprio use his Oscar-approved volume to scream “We’re all going to die” on a “Sesame Street”-like show is funny.
But of the many exciting names who are then wasted on this movie’s limited sense of humor, Blanchett is at the top of the list. She’s one of the best in the game, and McKay makes her plastic and cheap, and one of many characters who are not stretched out nearly enough in this high-art spoof. The same more or less happens to a forgotten Lawrence, or Streep, or Perry, or Melanie Lynskey, or Timothée Chalamet, as yet another grungy, lackadaisical, superficial pre-adult. And then there’s Rob Morgan, who plays a nothing sidekick to Lawrence and DiCaprio despite being just as good as them.
The plotting of “Don’t Look Up” isn’t just anti-urgent, it also makes one constantly aware of what this movie is not doing. Aside from how it continuously makes you scrape the walls of its hollow comic sequences for a laugh, it does not say anything new about how misinformation became a political cause, or about how scandals are the true opiate for the masses, whether it involves a pop star or the president. It certainly has little to offer about the role technology plays in this, with Mark Rylance playing a half-Elon Musk, quarter-Joe Biden tech guru who calls the shots even more than POTUS. “Don’t Look Up” thinks it’s pushing many savvy political buttons, when it’s only pointing out the obvious and the easy, over and over.
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