Don't Look Up

“Don’t Look Up”: sci-fi satire of earlier films like “Deep Impact”

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Netflix has released a bloated satire of previous comet (etc) movies (“Deep Impact” (1998), “Armageddon” (1998), “Melancholia” (2011)), called “Don’t Look Up”.

The title refers to the conspiracy theory movement spurned by Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill), son if the seemingly now lesbian and non-binary president Janie (Meryl Streep), who first blows off the report by scientists Randall Mindy (a bloated Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) [who has a counter-culture boyfriend Yule (Timothee Chalamet)].that a 9-km wide  comet will crash into the Pacific Ocean at a precise moment in six months. (Janie comes across as a caricature of Caitlin Jenner.)

The film had opened with Randall’s opening a serving of tea (John Fish style) at work in his observatory before Kate shows him her shocking accidental discovery watching the sky.  The film ends with two intra-credits epilogues, one 22000 years in the future as the president and her minions get eaten up on another "Jurassic" planet (by dinosaurs), and then as Jason steps out onto rubble and finds his cell phone still works.

The scientists had gone on to a cable news show called Rip Times and been made fun of by host  Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett). The country blew it off as misinformation, until Janie had a change of heart. The country could catch up with China in rare earth elements needed for smart phones if it planted beads with nuclear weapons on the comet to blow it into itty bitty pieces..   China splits off and tries to launch its own rocket, which fails.   Then, unfortunately, Janie’s plan still leaves the comet whole.

The movie is obvious satire of (mostly) right-wing social media trolling and misinformation, disrupting national security in a manner that parallels Covid.  The film probably could have done more with the issue of social media censorship and deplatforming. It does show the looting and rioting by people with nothing to lose.

(Age restricted: Nude settlers get eaten up by the animals on the new planet at the end).

Name: “Don’t Look Up“

Director, writer: Adam McKay, David Sirota (story)

Released: 2021/12

Format: 2.39:1

When and how viewed:          Netflix subsc.  2101/12/30

Length: 138

Rating: R

Companies: Hyperobject Industries, Netflix

Stars: ***__

(Posted: Thursday, December 30, 2021 at 1 PM EST)_