Don’t look up

You’ve binge watched The Witcher in two days and now you’re wondering what to do with your life. Well, not to worry there’s a wildly depressing, yet humorous movie, to take your mind off things – while simultaneously making you think about what’s wrong with society. It’s called ‘Don’t look up‘.

Yep, it’s a doozy.

The basic premise

A young PhD candidate (played by Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a comet that is heading directly toward earth. It’s a massive comet in the category of ‘planet killer’. Her professor, Randall Mindy (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) runs the numbers and the comet is due to hit earth in six months.

They get in touch with the president of the USA, brilliantly played by Meryl Streep, and they are unceremoniously blown off.

Then they go to the media and they’re not taken seriously there either. It’s treated as a cute school science experiment as to not be a downer and depress people. Also, on one TV talk show it followed a massive celebrity couple reunion and proposal, so no-one really cared about the scientists and their planet killing comet.

Eventually, the president decides to actually do something about the doom comet and they send a bunch of rockets and whatnot to divert the comet, but then the mission is stopped. Why is it stopped? Because a billionaire dipshit discovered that this comet has trillions of dollars’ worth of rare minerals in it that can be used as fossil fuels (or something like that).

So, then they have a different mission. Break up the comet into ‘manageable’ pieces and have it fall to earth, where it will be retrieved. Except the plan doesn’t work out, and everyone dies. Well, except the super-rich who can escape in a space ship and find their way to a different habitable planet.

Yep, that’s pretty much the gist of it.

The relevance

Apparently this movie was written as commentary on the governments around the world who do little to nothing about climate change, but I would rather equate it to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Make no mistake, global warming is going to be the death of us all, but slowly over time.)

Anyway, as said, I liked the movie because we have seen exactly the same thing with the pandemic. There are the clear minded people, who ask for action, but then also the majority of fuckwits who deny there is a problem in the first place.

The film accurately illustrated how science is disregarded and that politicians can make idiots believe anything if they pull the right emotional strings, spread misinformation on a massive scale and basically brainwash people. It’s just too close to reality.

The movie is all a bit absurd, but I assume that is the whole point of it – to show how absurd we are as humans.

Things I liked and hated

 Liked

The fact that Leonardo DiCaprio had an age-appropriate wife and kids. Just kidding, don’t hate me.

I liked how it showed the lunacy of American talk programmes – the idiocy is amazing.

The comment on nepotism in the White House (cough, Trump). In the movie the president’s son, Jason Orlean, is the chief of staff.

I love how the billionaire, Peter Isherwel, is a combination of all the billionaires that we love to hate.

Hated

Jennifer Lawrence’s hair cut

They beat that joke about paying for free snacks to death – seriously.

That Prof Mindy leaves his wife for the talk show host, Brie Evantee. It’s so cheesy.

Lastly

Have you seen ‘Don’t look up’? What did you think about it?

Meh.

Michelle

P.S. If you’d like to contact me, feel free to comment below, send an email to thatmichelleperson@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @M_ClutterBox.