Back to the Netflix well with this, yet another star-heavy comedy with a completely gratuitous budget. This is Adam McKay taking America to task for their apathy towards the apocalyptic reality of climate change, which was once oblivious but is now supercharged in its belligerence during the post-Trump era. Somehow this was the rare movie to be disliked by critics and still make it to the final Best Picture roster at the Oscars.
Obviously, basic cable made a meal out of McKay’s first five movies as a director. Prisoners spent entire weekends marathoning the “Anchorman” movies, “The Other Guys”, “Step Brothers” and, of course, “Talladega Nights”. And as McKay has mentioned, the messages of these films largely went over the head of these audiences. The prideful ignorance and media manipulation in the “Anchorman” universe, the intoxicated capitalism of “Talladega” and the righteous social anger of “Step Brothers”. “The Other Guys” fires its satirical arrows in wider directions, but the powerpoint that ended the movie, casting a light on Wall Street’s corruption was largely fast fowarded by the network during daytime airings.
So I get why McKay shifted away from Will Ferrell’s menagerie of entitled boobs to a more realistic type of incompetence. First there was the market manipulation of “The Big Short” (which will be reviewed eventually here), followed by Christian Bale capturing the Monty Python meets Faust narrative of Dick Cheney in “Vice”. Both these films generated sizable theatrical returns, but unlike his previous comedies they pretty much played to the core audience. McKay knew he needed to gussy up his “hard truths” even more, which brought on an avalanche of stars.
“Don’t Look Up” is largely led by scientists played by Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. But it’s surprising how much of a straight man they play to a massive roster of stars. There’s Meryl Streep as a dopey populist president and Jonah Hill as her moron son. Timothee Chalamet appears as a nihilist environmentalist. Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry play hot-air morning show personalities. Rob Morgan, Ron Perlman and Mark Rylance pop up as some of the least likely McKay collaborators. McKay, a former lead writer on “Saturday Night Live”, used to have to call the likes of Cheri Oteri and Laura Kightlinger (respectively) to fill in the margins of his cast, but here he has Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi as pop stars in love who perform an original song.
Instead of global warming, however, the threat is a comet falling to Earth. And so Lawrence and DiCaprio are tasked with informing the world that this will obliterate all life. I’m not sure if the comparison works on a one-to-one level. Global warming still seems abstract to many who doubt it (even though, if you are in any way literate, it’s not), whereas a comet is pretty easy to understand, and harder to avoid. Also, global warming has been discussed for decades, to indifference. The idea of a comet emerging out of nowhere as a metaphor leaves off the hook those who have doubted climate change despite the science growing stronger and the picture becoming more dire over the years.
The biggest surprise is that this just isn’t funny. How is that possible? Adam McKay is one of the greatest satirists of his time. If “Talladega Nights” came out today, it would largely be the same movie, but there are legions of ignorant fools who would be offended as if it were a cultural shot across the bow. And, personally, I laugh the least during “Talladega” than I do during his other movies. This guy KNOWS what’s funny. But every gag here flops and flails as this overqualified cast tries to pump life into these archetypes. The only joke that amused me is the Air Force General in the White House who inexplicably charges for snacks, and that happens really early. Where are the jokes?
McKay has always seemed filled with righteous anger, but even in this context he seems gunshy. Fox News is namedropped once for their climate denialism, but McKay instead prefers several jabs at the empty morning show garbage where the news is first illustrated to the general public. A worthy target, sure. But you could have done both, Adam. And the morning shows feel as if they have the last word here, allowed to keep being flighty and dumb when Lawrence and DiCaprio aren’t on air. When it’s time for McKay to leave his final mark on his message, he opts for a couple of epilogue tags that seem more like the product of early Todd Phillips instead.
I saw this movie a little while back, but I thought of it again recently when I remembered a small story about a New York Times reporter. He was bemoaning how his own friends didn’t know about the economic achievements of Joe Biden’s presidential tenure, despite him actually being an economic reporter. His reply was a version of “it’s not my job to teach people” about this stuff, but, well, it seems clear that it is. The media has been derelict about conveying these stories and their messages, not properly informing the public about issues like global warming, or the proper measures to take to avoid transmitting COVID, or the dangers of another Donald Trump presidency, this time under the stewardship of the Heritage Foundation.
Reporters like this should sit with people in prison. I knew I would encounter people with limited education and awareness of the outside world and its accompanying history, and I tried to have patience for that. What I wasn’t prepared for was the ways in which prisoners filled these gaps in their education. Early on in my sentence, I talked to an uneducated man who earnestly believed that dinosaurs didn’t exist. I laughed it off. And then I heard it again. And then it was seconded and thirded by more inmates. Eventually I was sent to another institution in a different state. And somehow, I met even more grown men who thought dinosaur fossils were a fraud, and that dinosaurs had not existed. I could do further research now that I am out to find out how widespread this belief really is. But do I really want to know how many people don’t believe in dinosaurs?
Next week, we’re headed into the world of DC Comics! Not that arthousey, I know.
Great review... I definitely was mixed on this one and shocked when it got so much Oscar love including a Best Picture nomination. I've only seen it once and never again. I still prefer Step Brothers and The Other Guys to Talladega Nights and even Anchorman.
Gonna read this later but should be interesting.