Directed by Adam McKay (Vice; The Big Short; Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy; Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues) and starring Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant; Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood; The Wolf of Wall Street; What's Eating Gilbert Grape; Inception; The Aviator; The Great Gatsby; Titanic), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook; American Hustle; Joy; Winter's Bone; The Hunger Games; X-Men: Dark Phoenix; Red Sparrow), Meryl Streep (The Post; Florence Foster Jenkins; August: Osage County; The Iron Lady; The Devil Wears Prada; The Bridges of Madison County; Out of Africa; Sophie's Choice; The French Lieutenant's Woman; Kramer vs. Kramer) and Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street; Moneyball; Night at the Museum 2; 21 Jump Street).
Science Fiction, Comedy drama; 138 mins; 12+
Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) is a PhD student of astronomy in Michigan who makes a startling discovery, a 5-10km-wide comet orbiting within the solar system. Her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), does the calculations and works out that it is on a direct collision course for earth. So far, the ideal start of a classic disaster film...
They raise the alarm and are invited to the White House to brief President Orlean (Meryl Streep), and meet her chief-of-staff (and son) Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill). That's when it starts to take a hard look at American stereotypes and becomes a satire of many institutions, including the political system and corporate America. The president initially wants to keep the issue quiet, not because she does not want the American people, and the world, to panic, but because of ratings ahead of the upcoming mid-terms. One particular funny scene involves a military general who charges them from water and snacks as they are kept waiting...
The scientists are unhappy about being silenced by those in power denying that there is a problem, and they set out to get the word out by appearing on daytime television and radio programmes, including The Daily Rip, coming up against both relatively trivial popular culture and hosts that do not take them seriously. Along the way, they are ridiculed, with even the politicians create their slogan "Don't Look Up" when the scientists are saying to anyone who will listen "Look Up" to see the comet for yourselves. And nobody seems to care, with many finding it nothing but inconvenient.
Corporate greed is given a grilling, with the public told bare-faced lies by "BASH" which is only out to line their own corporate pockets... It shows how shallow society can be, aided by a dependence on social media and displaying a general indifference in today's culture towards things that really matter. Even NASA is shown to be at the behest of the White House in the midst of Washington politics. In essence, it is a star-studded and entertaining parody of disaster movie meets political drama, with lack-of-substance television programmes. There are skateboarding drop-outs and gung-ho disgraced military thrown in for good measure.
Currently screening at Kinepolis in Luxembourg.
