Don’t Look Up

Who knows how it might play decades from now, but as a scathing critique of the here and now, Don’t Look Up is both hilarious and horrifying.

Delivering satirical jabs with sledgehammer subtlety, this ambitious ensemble piece from director Adam McKay (Vice) benefits from a first-rate cast to compensate for its uneven narrative missteps.

It mostly hits the mark in leveling broad targets such as Trump-era bureaucracy, partisan politics, climate change, and knee-jerk patriotism in the social-media age.

The story begins in a Michigan astronomy lab, where researcher Kate (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor, Randall (Leonardo DiCaprio), discover that a massive comet on a trajectory for Earth, with the power to wipe out the planet in six months.

They sound the alarm to a Pentagon official (Rob Morgan), who arranges a sit-down with the president (Meryl Streep). However, she’s more interested in winning the midterm election than saving humankind. “The timing is atrocious,” she huffs to her sycophantic son and chief of staff (Jonah Hill).

The scientific viability of their discovery isn’t as critical as how it plays with the masses. When their prediction doesn’t go viral, Randall and Kate lose all credibility while being dismissed as crackpots and conspiracy theorists.

The 24-hour news cycle isn’t any help in spreading the word, either, with a pair of peppy morning-show hosts (Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett) more committed to tracking the relationship between a pop singer (Ariana Grande) and her boyfriend (Scott Mescudi).

The film uses the most exaggerated doomsday scenario possible to examine the extremes of spin control, as politicians and corporations put their own self-interests over public welfare under the gravest of circumstances.

Veering too often into tangents and off-topic detours, Don’t Look Up doesn’t reach the heights of a modern-day Dr. Strangelove. It feels so eager to drive home talking points that it tends to sacrifice character depth and emotional complexity.

Still, even if its cynicism can be overbearing, McKay’s irreverent screenplay effectively milks laughs from our collective lack of trust in the machinery of our political system. It’s also an absurdly amusing cautionary tale about technological overreach and media sensationalism.

Making a fictional plea for compassion and cooperation, the film doesn’t convey much hope that we’re anywhere close to such goals in the real world. The comet’s impact could spell the end of humanity, yet the film’s impact somehow seems even scarier.

Rated R, 138 minutes.