Review of Don't Look Up (2021) by Mattyice — 24 Dec 2021

"Don't Look Up" could've been something truly masterful if it just trusted its audience a little bit more and retained more of a focus rather than stretching itself too thin in certain respects.

It still resulted in a good film with some solid humor, great performances, and a willingness to touch on many different (terrible) elements of society, from the awful political landscape and the lack of care for fellow humans, to more niche aspects like toxic positivity and awful echo-chambers promoted by the media and tech moguls.

While it seems to be on the right track in the first half of the film, the second half is where it stumbles a bit, namely due to the thematic elements becoming far too heavy-handed and unrefined to land properly.

It felt the need to really hammer home its messages to the audience so blatantly that the film's satire loses its deftness dramatically and plays like its audience is stupid. The film also is way too long and should've been trimmed by about 20-30 minutes.

Adam McKay was so close to putting together a masterful satire about the current state of the world. While he hits home runs in certain respects, he strikes out in others, creating a good film that really missed out on its potential to be a great one.

I'd probably give it somewhere between a 7 and an 8 in the end.