Review | Netflix movie review: Don’t Look Up – Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence try to save the world in star-studded tragicomic satire
- Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence discover that a comet is coming for Earth – but the gravity of the situation is lost on a celebrity-obsessed world
- Adam McKay’s Netflix film Don’t Look Up is an amusing tragi-farce that’s bleak, knowing and hilarious – and the all-star cast is nothing short of sensational
4/5 stars
Adam McKay’s all-star Netflix film Don’t Look Up comes packaged with a premise typical of many a Hollywood disaster movie: a giant comet is heading towards Earth to wreak apocalyptic destruction. It’s the sort of plot device we’ve seen in everything from Armageddon and Deep Impact to the recent Greenland with Gerard Butler.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays astronomer Dr Randall Mindy and Jennifer Lawrence co-stars as graduate student Kate Dibiasky, who discovers that a comet somewhere between five and 10 kilometres (3-6 miles) wide is on a direct collision course with Earth in six months’ time.
Immediately they take their findings to the White House, where President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic chief of staff Jason (Jonah Hill) seem more interested in accumulating votes than the scientists’ cataclysmic news.
With the help of Dr Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), the one senior official who takes them seriously, they set out on a media tour to alert the public. Soon, they’re on television morning show The Daily Rep, hosted by the polished but cynical Brie (Cate Blanchett) and her co-host, Jack (Tyler Perry).
