Don’t Look Up
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep. Put out a film with just one of those stars and I’ll go see it, put out a film with all three of them and you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be there to watch it, maybe more than once.
I don’t particularly like Adam McKay’s more political movies. I like his style of hilarious, “nonsense” movies. Movies like “Step Brothers” and “Anchorman” are some of the greatest movies ever, in my opinion, ridiculous and hilarious while “The Big Short” and ”Vice,” I don’t really care much for. This film did try to be more comedic which was refreshing and a step back to normal for Adam McKay. For those who don’t know, the film tells the story of two astronomers who discover a comet that is going to hit Earth and how the world reacts as they go about telling of the impending doom. There is no question, though, Adam McKay is able to get prestigious stars to work in his films which is shown at maximum capacity in this film. We’ve got Leonardo DiCaprio (Leo) , Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill, Tyler Perry, Timothy Chalamet, and Ariana Grande. Insane! I am not going to get a chance to talk about everyone in this film, but I will talk about most of them.
I am going against my guru and role model Grace Randolph and saying that Leo was perfectly cast in this movie. I thought he played his character very believably and he was handsome without being too handsome. He really played the awkward part well, I thought. Someone like Leo would not have as much stage fright and awkwardness as his character does but he played it and I totally believed it. Jennifer Lawrence’s character, though, had nearly no redeeming qualities. I know she is supposed to be kind of socially-awkward and weird but I would expect her to somehow be redeemed or for my view to change about her. Neither of those things happened. She also went from apathy to very emotional very quickly. I can maybe understand her character more if I was told she had aspergers or was on the spectrum or something. Nope. That's fine. She’s only one character. Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill were some of the best parts of the film! The president of the United States Meryl Streep! Who knew that is what we needed in life?! And Meryl and Jonah's banter was giving me lifeblood! I loved it! Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry were fine. I just love me some Cate Blanchett! The de-aging used on Cate made her look kind of weird, though. Anyone else with me?! Mark Rylance was SO good! Boy, he was amazing! I have seen him in several productions of the works of Shakespeare ON STAGE so I know he can act and he won an Oscar for the movie “Bridge of Spies,” so I should have known…Timothee Chalamet, as always, was great! He is just so juvenile anyway so he can and probably always will pull off playing a kid. And Ariana Grande, I thought, did a TERRIBLE job! To be fair, her role was written terribly but she did not help. I am nervous for her to play Glinda in the Wicked movie but hopefully she will do a whole lot better in that. Whew! That was a lot of people.
The visual effects get better as the film progresses, except for the two end scenes. Those are a joke. Anyway, the first scene of big visual effects involves a spaceship and the whole time I was like, “That's fake!!! That is pure CGI!” It was fine, though, the CGI got better. It has a lot of CGI. it will probably get recognized a lot for its work with visual effects because it has so much CGI, and that’s what tends to happen. The films with the most CGI usually get recognized the most.
The story, I thought, was funny! And as I’ve had multiple viewings of this film, I think it is funnier each viewing. If you go into it thinking about taking it seriously, like I did my first time, you will probably think it is ludicrous and kind of childish but if you go in wanting a good time, you will enjoy this farce.
I love how this film points a finger at humanity and forces us to either just be angry and mad and hate this film OR laugh at yourself and your misgivings, because everybody has misgivings! That is what I love, when a TV show or film can poke fun at not just one group of people or one way of life, but everyone. I would definitely recommend this film. It's not for the ones who are going to take it too seriously and become offended, but it’s for anyone else.
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