Don’t Look Up

All the stars are in this movie

I read an article about how the movie business is in such a dismal state that for any movie to succeed, casting one or two big stars is no longer enough. Now they have to hire entire galaxies of A-listers for a movie to perform well. Don’t Look Up, written and directed by Adam McKay, is a good example. The cast of thousands includes Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Arianna Grande, Timotheé Chalamet, Ron Perlman, and Melanie Lynskey, (she’s a star as far as I’m concerned).

For a one-joke extended concept about our denial of climate change, Don’t Look Up works pretty well. Instead of punishing us for not doing anything about climate change, McKay chooses a metaphor. A huge comet is hurtling down towards Earth and humans only have six months to do something about it. You would think that this news would be taken with serious alacrity by all concerned, but if recent developments are any indication, you’d be wrong. McKay unfolds a catalog of human stupidity, arrogance, greed, and insanity, focusing on the response of the United States, which has an undue influence over the entire world. The US is saddled by a president (Meryl Streep) who is an intelligent version of Donald Trump, which doesn’t make her any less stupid, venal, self-interested, nepotistic, and apathetic to anything that does not…