Don’t Look Up is depressing. But this isn’t a warning not to watch the film. It’s more a suggestion to mentally prepare for such a scathing satire at the increasingly worrisome end of an already arduous year. It follows Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy graduate student, and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), after they discover a giant comet heading directly for Earth. It’s clear the comet will destroy the planet, but also abundantly clear that those in power will fail the populace miserably. So the two join up with NASA employee Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) to try not so much to save the world but to get someone, anyone, to do so before impact. The Adam McKay film stays true to the writer-director’s signature style. It’s star-studded, and the edits often wink at the audience, but it’s not so fun being in on the joke this time around. R, 138 min.
Wide release in theaters and streaming on Netflix.