Don’t look up, 3.5 readers…then again, maybe you should.
BQB here with a review of Netflix’s big holiday release.
Let’s face it, 3.5 readers. We are all so hopelessly divided that we don’t agree on even the most basic of facts. If I said the sun is yellow, at least 2 out of 3.5 of you would tell me it is orange.
We are also obsessed with social media. It’s tough to get our attention when…hey! A new kitty cat video! Wait…what was I saying?
On top of all that, we have become a what’s happening now society, such that if it isn’t going to affect us within the next 24 hours, then we simply lack the foresight and/or mental bandwith to worry about it. Planning for tomorrow, let alone for the next month, or next year has gone the way of the dodo.
Director Adam McKay and an all-star cast mock these and more terrible aspects of society when astronomers Randall Mindy and Kate Dibiasky identify a comet on a collision course toward earth, destined to cause the end of the world in 6 months. Jennifer Lawrence is her usual snarky self as Kate while Leo goes against type to play a wimpy, worrisome nerd who needs to puke his guts out before he goes on live TV.
Alas, these intrepid scientists find that everyone is too stupid to pull their heads out of their butts long enough to come up with a solution. Mother/son team President and Chief of Staff Orlean (Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill doing their best Donald Trump and Don Jr. impressions are too worried about their own political scandals to worry about the comet.
Randy and Kate are left with no choice but to conduct their own media blitz, quickly discovering that people, by and large, are genuinely stupid and care more about the duo’s looks, physical appearance, their tones of voice, basically anything other than the fact that they’re trying to warn everyone about a freaking incoming killer comet.
Rounding out the film is Mark Rylance’s Peter Isherwell, turning in a performance that can only be described as a cross between Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson. The multibillionaire/owner of the world’s largest cellphone and tech company wants mine the comet rather than destroy it, putting the safety of the world at risk for profit.
Overall, the film serves as a warning against all the things we aren’t looking up at or even just at. We go about our daily lives, wasting our time on social media and we do very little to fend off the very real problems that are headed our way. Will we, as a collective society, ever pull our heads out of our butts long enough to solve the world’s problems before it is too late?
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. My one complaint is this is largely an anti-conservative satire and indeed, Trump has done much worthy of parody, but Biden has been prez for a year and I don’t really see him solving any problems either. There might have been room to lampoon the two-party system or to point out it isn’t enough for Democrats to say they want to save the environment. They actually have to be proactive in achieving goals toward saving it.
Bonus points for Cate Blanchett who is virtually unrecognizable as a stereotypical blonde bombshell cable news babe. With all the phony hair, makeup and the plastic surgery look she was given for the role, I didn’t figure out it was her until halfway through the film.
Bookshelf Battle 