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It takes a certain kind of touch, a populist brilliance, to know that “Milk was a bad choice” could help launch a comedy empire. Adam McKay had that when he scoured through the many improvised lines of “Anchorman,” and co-created what will probably be known as the last movement of American blockbuster comedy. And he continued that touch with the unmitigated triumph “ The Big Short ,” venturing to educate moviegoers about the housing crisis using movie stars and furious monologues. But McKay is mightily thwarted by the larger scope of “Don’t Look Up,” a hybrid of his comedic and dramatic instincts that only dreams of being insightful about social media, technology, global warming, celebrity, and in general, human existence. A disastrous movie, “Don’t Look Up” shows McKay as the most out of touch he’s ever been with what is clever, or how to get his audience to care.  

If “Don’t Look Up” deserves any award, it’s for the work of its casting director, Francine Maisler . This Netflix movie is packed with so many big, expensive names, and it often puts them all in the same room. One scene has Leonardo DiCaprio , Ariana Grande , Cate Blanchett , Tyler Perry , and Jennifer Lawrence sitting next to each other, with Scott Mescudi ( Kid Cudi ) on a video feed for good measure. The amount of star power on-screen is set up for a once-in-a-lifetime comedy free-for-all, but “Don’t Look Up” uses this to make one of many anti-provocative jokes about how celebrity messiness compels us more than the death of our planet. Get used to that rise of anticipation and crash of execution if you want to be unsurprised by "Don't Look Up."

The movie's first bungled joke concerns its biggest name, Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a low-level astronomer from Michigan. McKay takes the nuclear energy within golden boy DiCaprio, the kind that gets him Oscar nominations year after year, and makes him swallow it so that he turns into a mildly amusing Will Ferrell character. The ulcers for DiCaprio’s Dr. Mindy are especially bad after his assistant Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) casually makes a horrific discovery: a comet is coming for planet Earth in six months and 14 days. They quickly want to let the world know, and realize in the coming days that people don’t care about bad news about the future.  

Their initial audience for their news is the President of the United States, played by Meryl Streep . When she does finally take a meeting with them, she’s more concerned about her polling numbers, how things will look; an apocalypse won’t help the upcoming primaries. McKay begins to needle the viewer with the joke that no one cares about the end of the world as much the latest distracting scandal. There’s no respite offered from Jonah Hill , who plays a mildly funny character—her chief of staff, and sociopathic son—but is reduced to easy bro jokes. Like many characters, you can see the reflection of what it means, but the joke often ends at recognition. And because the movie’s editing is complicit in the short attention spans that McKay nonetheless rages against, it tends to intercut different framed pictures of Streep’s President Orlean with various celebrities, or hop from one scene to another while characters are talking mid-sentence.  

Mindy and Dibiasky then take their message to the media, but the platform is a banter-heavy morning show (hosted by vacuous characters played by Perry and Blanchett) where the producers try to smooth their story into a cutesy scientific discovery in between the aforementioned Grande incident. Only one of the astronomers makes it out of the studio appearance without turning into a national meme—and no one takes their screed seriously—but it sets them on contrasting paths of popularity, becoming the media distraction themselves. Credit to moments when the chaos of "Don't Look Up" feels inspired, watching Leonardo DiCaprio use his Oscar-approved volume to scream “We’re all going to die” on a “Sesame Street”-like show is funny.  

But of the many exciting names who are then wasted on this movie’s limited sense of humor, Blanchett is at the top of the list. She’s one of the best in the game, and McKay makes her plastic and cheap, and one of many characters who are not stretched out nearly enough in this high-art spoof. The same more or less happens to a forgotten Lawrence, or Streep, or Perry, or Melanie Lynskey , or Timoth é e Chalamet, as yet another grungy, lackadaisical, superficial pre-adult. And then there’s Rob Morgan , who plays a nothing sidekick to Lawrence and DiCaprio despite being just as good as them.  

The plotting of “Don’t Look Up” isn't just anti-urgent, it also makes one constantly aware of what this movie is not doing. Aside from how it continuously makes you scrape the walls of its hollow comic sequences for a laugh, it does not say anything new about how misinformation became a political cause, or about how scandals are the true opiate for the masses, whether it involves a pop star or the president. It certainly has little to offer about the role technology plays in this, with Mark Rylance playing a half- Elon Musk , quarter-Joe Biden tech guru who calls the shots even more than POTUS. “Don’t Look Up” thinks it’s pushing many savvy political buttons, when it’s only pointing out the obvious and the easy, over and over.  

McKay uses frustrating shorthand to create scope out of his scenario that concerns the whole world, but only when it cares to acknowledge it—the constant stock footage is so broad that it turns human existence into a generic nothingness (someone, lock him out of the stock!), and there’s little wit from its social media montages, which introduce a new hashtag after each public development, including the denier phrase that gives the movie its title. It’s an entertainer’s tired shtick dressed up as authorship—McKay has also made yet another talented cinematographer (in this case, Oscar winner Linus Sandgren ), bobble the camera for the sake of feigning energy (one shot in particular looks like the camera is dropped right before it cuts away).  

It’s almost irrelevant that this is McKay’s worst film yet, because there’s something far more maddening about the promise of, the potential, and the importance that “Don’t Look Up” foists upon itself. This is, of course, about global warming, and  how we’re not doing enough about it — a funny premise for a star-studded comedy with disturbing stake s. But McKay has filled this parable with hot air, wanting us to marvel at and then choke on its mediocre jokes. 

Now playing in select theaters and available on Netflix on December 24.

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film Credits

Don't Look Up (2021)

138 minutes

Jennifer Lawrence as Kate Dibiasky

Leonardo DiCaprio as Dr. Randall Mindy

Meryl Streep as President Janie Orlean

Cate Blanchett as Brie Evantee

Rob Morgan as Dr. Clayton 'Teddy' Oglethorpe

Jonah Hill as Jason Orlean

Mark Rylance

Tyler Perry as Jack Bremmer

Timothée Chalamet as Quentin

Ron Perlman as Colonel Ben Drask

Ariana Grande as Riley Bina

Kid Cudi as DJ Chello

Melanie Lynskey as June

Himesh Patel as Phillip

Writer (story by)

• David Sirota

Cinematographer

• Linus Sandgren
• Hank Corwin
• Nicholas Britell
• Francine Maisler

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Don't Look Up

Two low-level astronomers must go on a giant media tour to warn humankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth. Two low-level astronomers must go on a giant media tour to warn humankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth. Two low-level astronomers must go on a giant media tour to warn humankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth.

• David Sirota
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Jennifer Lawrence
• Meryl Streep
• 4.7K User reviews
• 317 Critic reviews
• 49 Metascore
• 24 wins & 95 nominations total

• Dr. Randall Mindy

• Kate Dibiasky

• President Orlean

• Brie Evantee

• Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe

• Jason Orlean

• Peter Isherwell

• Jack Bremmer

• Benedict Drask

• (as Scott Mescudi)

• Dan Pawketty

• Adul Grelio

• General Themes

• Congressman Tenant
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The Chicxulub asteroid Kate Dibiasky mentions hit Earth 66 million years ago in what is now the Gulf of Mexico. The estimated size of the asteroid was 10 kilometers (six miles) wide and resulted in 75% of all life on the planet dying. Known as the dinosaur killer, the asteroid left a crater estimated to be 150 kilometers (93 miles) in diameter and 20 kilometers (12 miles) in depth.
• Goofs Astronomers turn off all the lights and screens within the dome when they take images of the sky.

Kate Dibiasky : You guys, the truth is way more depressing. They are not even smart enough to be as evil as you're giving them credit for.

• Crazy credits In the beginning credits with the telescope, it can be seen that the film is presented with "Bash Original Content".
• Connections Featured in The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Jennifer Lawrence/Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (2021)
• Soundtracks Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F' wit Written by The GZA (as Gary Grice), Method Man (as Clifford Smith), Ol' Dirty Bastard (as Russell Jones), RZA (as Robert Diggs), Ghostface Killah (as Dennis Coles), Inspectah Deck (as Jason Hunter), Raekwon (as Corey Woods) and U-God (as Lamont Hawkins) Performed by Wu-Tang Clan Courtesy of RCA Records By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment

User reviews 4.7K

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• Jan 12, 2024
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• December 24, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• Official Netflix
• No miren arriba
• Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Hyperobject Industries
• Province of British Columbia Production Services Tax Credit
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $75,000,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 18 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital

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‘Don’t Look Up’ Review: Tick, Tick, Kablooey

Adam McKay wants you to know that it’s the end of the world and you should absolutely, unequivocally not feel fine. (But do laugh.)

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By Manohla Dargis

Movies love to menace Earth. It’s human nature. In some of the most plausible doomsday flicks — “Meteor,” “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” — a big space rock threatens annihilation. Usually, if not always happily, someone finally comes to the rescue, though that isn’t the case in the 1951 film “ When Worlds Collide .” Before it makes good on its title, this shocker rockets survivalists on an ark to colonize another planet, which is more or less what Elon Musk has talked about with Space X.

The director Adam McKay is not in the mood for nihilistic flights of fancy. Our planet is too dear and its future too terrifying, as the accelerated pace of species extinction and global deforestation underscore. But humanity isn’t interested in saving Earth, never mind itself, as the recent Glasgow climate summit reminded us. We’re too numb, dumb, powerless and indifferent, too busy fighting trivial battles. So McKay has made “Don’t Look Up,” a very angry, deeply anguished comedy freak out about how we are blowing it, hurtling toward oblivion. He’s sweetened the bummer setup with plenty of yuks — good, bad, indifferent — but if you weep, it may not be from laughing.

Maybe bring hankies, though don’t look for speeches about climate change and global warming. Rather than directly confronting the existential horror of our environmental catastrophe, McKay has taken an allegorical approach in “Don’t Look Up” with a world-destroying comet. Oh sure, on its website, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (yes, it’s real) isn’t worried about near-Earth objects, as they’re called: “No known asteroid larger than 140 meters in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years.” Whew. But no matter. The planet is on fire, and so is McKay, who’s embraced his inner Roland Emmerich (“2012”) with a fury by lobbing a great big joke at us.

That joke is definitely on us or soon will be in “Don’t Look Up,” which follows a studiously curated ragtag collection of scientists, politicians, military types, journalists and miscellaneous others who face — or don’t — the threat of a rapidly approaching comet. “I heard there’s an asteroid or a comet or something that you don’t like the looks of,” a visibly bored president of the United States (Meryl Streep) says to some anxious scientists who have been granted an imperial audience. The scientists really don’t like what they’ve seen but the president has other things on her mind, including upcoming elections and the friendly perv she’s trying to get placed on the Supreme Court.

Packed with big names, many locations and ambitiously staged set pieces (and a lot of giddily terrible hairdos), the movie is a busy, boisterous mixed bag, and whether you laugh or not you may still grit your teeth. The story opens in an observatory where Jennifer Lawrence, who plays a grad student, Kate Dibiasky, first spots the comet. Kate’s giddiness over her discovery soon turns to fear when her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (a terrific Leonardo DiCaprio), crunches some numbers and realizes the worst. Together, they pass along the bad news. Enter NASA (Rob Morgan), the military (Paul Guilfoyle) and the White House, which is where the movie’s breeziness takes a turn for the ominous.

Also for the frantic, strident and obvious. McKay’s touch here is considerably blunter and less productive than it has been in a while. In his two previous movies — “ The Big Short ” and “ Vice ” — he blended comedic and dramatic modes to fascinating effect. He experimented with tone and pitch, and played up and down different scales, from the deadly serious to the outrageously silly. It didn’t always work. It proved easier to get into McKay’s groove when you laughed at, say, Margot Robbie explaining subprime mortgages while she’s taking a bubble bath in “The Big Short” than when you watched Christian Bale’s Dick Cheney discussing another American war in “Vice.”

The stakes are higher still in “Don’t Look Up,” which grows progressively more frenetic and wobbly as the inevitability of the catastrophe is finally grasped by even the most ridiculous of the movie’s buffoon-rich cast of characters. One problem is that some of McKay’s biggest targets here — specifically in politics and infotainment — have already reached maximum self-parody or tragedy (or both). What is left to satirically skewer when facts are derided as opinion, flat Earthers attend annual conferences and conspiracy theory movements like QAnon have become powerful political forces?

Even so, McKay keeps swinging hard and fast, and from the start, establishes a sense of visceral urgency with loose, agitated camerawork and brisk editing that fits the ticking-bomb story. He slings zingers and stages bits of comic business, making fine use of funny faces, jumping eyebrows, slow burns and double takes. Part ethnographer, part sociologist, he is especially good at mining the funny-ha-ha, funny-weird spaces in between people. But he’s not always in control of his material, including some cheap shots that slide into witless sexism. Presidential vanity is always a fair target, but too many of the digs directed at Streep’s character play into gender stereotypes.

Streep is a great deal of fun to watch when she’s not unintentionally making you cringe, and Lawrence gives the movie a steady emotional pulse even at its most frantic. McKay’s work with DiCaprio is particularly memorable, partly because Dr. Mindy’s trajectory — from honest, concerned scientist to glib, showboating celebrity — strengthens the movie’s heartbreaking, unspeakable truth: Human narcissism and all that it has wrought, including the destruction of nature, will finally be our downfall. In the end, McKay isn’t doing much more in this movie than yelling at us, but then, we do deserve it.

Don’t Look Up Rated R for violence, language and the apocalypse. Running time: 2 hours 18 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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Leonardo dicaprio and jennifer lawrence in adam mckay’s ‘don’t look up’: film review.

An all-star cast that also includes Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep faces the end of the world in Netflix's satire of climate crisis and political opportunism.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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In 1998, Earth braced for dueling annihilation events as Deep Impact and Armageddon hit multiplexes two months apart. Twenty-three years later, Hollywood is again sending an extinction-level comet hurtling through space toward us in Don’t Look Up . Those earlier films opted for earnest melodrama and big, dumb yippee-ki-kay heroics, respectively. It’s probably only fitting that in 2021 we get the end-of-the-world movie we deserve — a cynical, insufferably smug satire stuffed to the gills with stars that purports to comment on political and media inattention to the climate crisis but really just trivializes it. Dr. Strangelove it ain’t.

The movie will have a limited theatrical run from Dec. 10, ahead of its Dec. 24 Netflix bow, and no doubt some will find its easy digs at the indifference of a shamelessly self-dealing White House administration, the greed of a monolithic tech company, the vapidity of upbeat morning television and the outsize influence of social media quite hilarious. I did not.

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Release date : Friday, Dec. 10 Cast : Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Melanie Lynskey Director : Adam McKay Screenwriter : Adam McKay; story by McKay, David Sirota

Since rebranding from goofball comedies to Important Issues Satire with The Big Short and Vice , writer-director Adam McKay has specialized in movies far too pleased with themselves as they prompt audiences to feel superior to amoral conservatives, piously self-satisfied liberals and insatiably avaricious capitalists. What they don’t usually provide is depth, nuance or any sort of intelligent curiosity, generally opting to razzle-dazzle the viewer with lots of fast talk, smart-assy pseudo-cleverness and cartoonishly obvious characterizations.

This new feature takes those negatives to extremes that made me hostile to Don’t Look Up almost from the outset. The squandering of a dizzying assembly of marquee talent alone is aggravation enough. McKay drops in the famous joke by humorist Jack Handey near the start: “I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers.” Would that this tiresome doomsday whoopee cushion contained something even half as witty.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Kate Dibiasky, a doctoral student in astronomy at a Michigan college, a character defined mostly by her two nose rings and razor-cut red bangs. She quietly sings “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit” while working, but we know right off that she’s smart and serious.

Leonardo DiCaprio — whose longstanding advocacy on environmental issues reportedly was instrumental in him signing on to the project — plays Kate’s professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, a character mostly defined by his insecurities, anxiety attacks and occasional reliance on Xanax. “What would Carl Sagan do?” Dr. Mindy asks himself when Kate alerts him to her discovery of the killer comet rocketing toward Earth, predicting a direct hit in just over 6 months.

They take their findings to Dr. Clayton Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which, as the film points out, actually exists. Dr. Oglethorpe, who goes by Teddy, accompanies them to a White House meeting organized by Pentagon brass General Themes (Paul Guilfoyle). But President Janie Orlean ( Meryl Streep ) is too preoccupied by some embarrassing disclosures about her shady Supreme Court nominee to see them.

When they finally get some Oval Office face time, both the vain, condescending president and her snarky, sycophantic son and chief of staff, Jason ( Jonah Hill ), brush them off. “What is this going to cost me?” asks POTUS, looking warily toward the midterms before she decides to “sit tight and assess,” instructing Jason to get some Ivy Leaguers on it.

McKay possibly believes that by making the president a woman, the Trump allusion won’t be too on the nose. But if the short attention span and the disrespect for science weren’t enough, the liaison with a former porn star and the obsequious asshole son desperate for her approval hammer it home with the subtlety of, well, a meteor impact.

The performances lurch even further into caricature when Randall and Kate, after striking out with a thinly veiled version of The New York Times , take their concerns about the Dibiasky Comet, as it’s now known, to morning television. As hosts Brie Evantee and Jack Bremmer, Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry are in full-blown sketch-comedy mode, determined to keep their show, The Daily Rip , perky and light no matter how gloomy the topic.

With gleaming dental implants, frozen features plastered in waxwork makeup and a flawless blond flip, Blanchett looks like a refugee from the swiftly forgotten Bombshell . Like Charlize Theron in that film, she makes her character a shark, ridiculing Kate when the latter cuts in on the hosts’ frivolous on-air banter to shriek that the end is nigh. Brie also makes a play for Randall, which makes less sense given that DiCaprio has seldom been made to look more unattractively sexless in a movie. “Well, the handsome astronomer can come back anytime , but the yelling lady, not so much,” coos Brie.

Their TV appearance is mostly overshadowed by that of pop star Riley Bina (Ariana Grande), on the show to talk about her breakup with fellow music celebrity DJ Chello (Scott Mescudi). But Randall does make enough of an impression to be branded an AILF (Astronomer I’d Like to Fuck) on social media, while Kate becomes a viral crazy-lady meme.

In McKay’s manically busy idea of plot development, the life-threatening discovery gets undermined by a whole world of heedless arrogance. NASA’s head of damage control (Hettienne Park) downplays their findings; the FBI steps in to silence them; Kate’s online journalist ex-boyfriend Philip (Himesh Patel) paints her as a lunatic; and President Orlean adopts their plan to blow the rock off its course, albeit with a few tweaks to better serve her political purposes.

She enlists gung-ho idiot Colonel Ben Drask (Ron Perlman) to pilot the mission, dismissing Randall’s suggestion that the same result could be achieved using drones. Her splashy presidential announcement on a warship is as much George W. Bush as Trump.

The film gets so cluttered with surplus characters and gratuitous star casting that any satirical heft is pretty much steamrolled. The most prominent of the secondary players is Mark Rylance as Sir Peter Isherwell, head of global tech conglomerate Bash, whose prominence is illustrated in just about every device seen on camera. The toothy man-child is Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Mr. Rogers rolled into one, though his Zen demeanor doesn’t hide his hunger for profit, especially when he identifies the Dibiasky Comet as a potential asset.

At least Rylance’s annoying character serves a narrative purpose, unlike Timothée Chalamet ’s Yule, a grungy skater dude who sees Kate as some kind of prophet, ignored by the growing chorus of impact deniers. Even more superfluous is an unbilled star playing the lead in a $300 million movie rushed into production, titled Total Devastation . The yucks continue with Riley Bina and DJ Chello’s apocalyptic anthem, “Just Look Up,” carrying on through an aftermath scene elsewhere in the universe and the obligatory post-credits sequence.

McKay’s brand of satire never merely prods a target when there’s a sledgehammer to be swung. Nicholas Britell’s jazzy score nudges the action along at such a frantic pace that it’s frankly a relief when this noisy, bombastic, numbingly broad laff riot makes way for the return of Melanie Lynskey as Randall’s grounded wife June back in Michigan. She’s by far the most refreshingly low-key character in the movie, her humanity and kindness undiminished by her humiliation. Lynskey is a terrific actor and June might even have injected some eleventh-hour poignancy if McKay hadn’t so thoroughly smothered that possibility in ha-di-ha-hah flippancy.

Full credits

Distributor: Netflix Production company: Hyperobject Industries Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Chiklis, Tomer Sisley, Paul Guilfoyle, Robert Joy, Hettienne Park, Connor Sweeney, Robert Radochia Director: Adam McKay Screenwriter: Adam McKay; story by McKay, David Sirota Producers: Adam McKay, Kevin Messick Executive producer: Jeff Waxman Director of photography: Linus Sandgren Production designer: Clayton Hartley Costume designer: Susan Matheson Music: Nicholas Britell Editor: Hank Corwin Visual effects supervisor: Raymond Gieringer Casting: Francine Maisler

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‘Don’t Look Up’ Review: The Sky Is Falling in Adam McKay’s Crank Comet Comedy

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play scientists with a Cassandra problem, futilely trying to warn earthlings that their days are numbered.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Humans are stupid and can’t be expected to agree on anything, even if their existence depends on it. That’s the “hilarious” insight Adam McKay wants to impart with “Don’t Look Up,” a smug, easy-target political satire in which two earnest astronomers ( Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence ) have one hell of a time trying to convince an attention-deficit president ( Meryl Streep , clearly having more fun than we are) or bobblehead media (repped by Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry) that there’s a comet hurtling toward Earth.

“Keep it light, fun.” That’s the advice a cable talk-show producer gives “the sky is falling” scientists Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio, looking dweeby) and Kate Dibiasky (Lawrence, sporting a nose ring and hair the color of red velvet cake) when the pair appear on “The Daily Rip” to share the news with the masses. Except the sky is falling, and these two can’t get anyone to take them seriously. They’ve already been to the White House, where Streep’s Trump-like President Orlean (also the name of her “Adaptation” character) and her bratty chief of staff/son (Jonah Hill in his single most obnoxious role) were too busy damage-controlling a ratings disaster to deal with a potential extinction event.

Rather than “sit tight and assess,” as the administration recommends, the scientists — along with rational-minded Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) from the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (evidently a real place) — decide to leak the news on an insipid but popular “Good Morning America”-style talk show. Dr. Mindy does well on TV, adapting to the hosts’ brainless banter, but Dibiasky can’t deal, snapping, “Well, maybe the discussion of the planet isn’t supposed to be fun! Maybe it’s supposed to be terrifying. And unsettling … when we’re all 100% for sure gonna fucking die!”

Shrill and self-righteous though it can be, this starry comedy is McKay’s way of raising the alarm on global warming, an issue that DiCaprio and no less a figure than ex-veep Al Gore have struggled to turn into compelling cinema. Since the ice caps aren’t melting fast enough (for eco-thriller purposes, at least), McKay invents a threat with a six-month deadline to impact, the assumption being that collapsing the time frame for survival would surely — or at least should — light a fire under people’s butts.

Without spoiling just how gonzo things get, such an ultra-cynical scenario can end one of three ways: (1) with the doomsday nerds being proven wrong, (2) with the nincompoop president somehow managing to save the day or (3) with the whole effing planet being obliterated so McKay can “prove” his point. As executed, “Don’t Look Up” plays like the leftie answer to “Armageddon” — which is to say, it ditches the Bruckheimer approach of assembling a bunch of blue-collar heroes to rocket out to space and nuke the approaching comet, opting instead to spotlight the apathy, incompetence and financial self-interest of all involved (including Mark Rylance’s Sir Peter Isherwell, an extreme Asperger’s case — and campaign mega-donor — who combines elements of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Richard Branson to uniquely irritating effect).

“Don’t Look Up” is the latest in McKay’s streak of liberal-leaning current-affairs critiques, and it boasts many of the same strengths as “Vice” and “The Big Short” before it: topicality and a gift for translating complex ideas into glib comic situations on one hand, spastic pacing and an unwieldy mix of acting styles on the other. After a series of more-fun Will Ferrell collaborations (namely “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights”), the writer-director got serious — in terms of his underlying content, at least — with 2015’s best picture-nominated “The Big Short,” a clever if exhausting breakdown of the financial crisis that set McKay on a path of increasingly punchy, stick-it-to-the-man movies. But unless you’re Roland Emmerich, global warming is a tricky concept to dramatize, and McKay can’t decide whether he wants to amuse or upset us … so why not both?

An exaggerated caricature of the family members who make up Trump’s inner circle, Jonah Hill is there merely to get laughs, delivering lines like “I can’t think of another president that I’d ever wanna see in Playboy” about his mom. But what is going on in the throwaway scene where Lawrence’s Chicken Little character suffers a mini-meltdown, pointing around the room and screaming, “You’re going to die! And you’re going to die!” in all directions? Getting the laugh is obviously editor Hank Corwin’s first priority, but often enough, it comes at the price of a kind of formal anarchy (cutting to hi-def shots of bees and CG renderings of outer space).

The plot of “Don’t Look Up” is intricate enough that McKay would have done well to rein in the improv, rather than letting everyone “American Hustle” their way through scenes (only Lawrence emerges unscathed, but then, she had “American Hustle” to practice). The director seems to be aiming for “Dr. Strangelove”-level lunacy, when we probably would’ve settled for “Wag the Dog,” which similarly skewered politics through the lens of showbiz, or “Idiocracy,” the film this one most resembles.

The characters have a relatively tight schedule to save Earth, but it’s virtually impossible to tell what (much less how much time) has transpired between scenes, as Dr. Mindy and Dibiasky’s private lives lurch forward without explanation. At one point, we find her working in a BevMo-style liquor store and falling in love with a stoned skater (Timothée Chalamet, wasted, and also wasted). But wasn’t she a grad student with a quasi-reporter boyfriend when the movie began? So how’d she get here?

Had the movie come out in 2019, I probably would’ve gone along with its overall premise — that, when faced with an extinction-level emergency, our species is not equipped to come together and problem-solve. But I need not remind you that we’ve collectively spent the past two years dealing with another disaster, COVID-19, and though the situation has devolved into a lot of the behavior McKay depicts (enriching billionaires, denying science), the pandemic also showed humanity’s capacity to focus on a common goal, to develop a vaccine in record time and to message a potentially lifesaving mask policy on a global scale.

So maybe we’re not as hopeless as McKay implies, even if a few of the movie’s jokes are dead-on sendups of stunts we’ve witnessed in recent politics. The movie’s title, for example, alludes to the ostrich-minded among us — those whose strategy for ignoring the growing fireball in the sky is simply “don’t look up.” And then there’s the vapid pop star (Arianna Grande) who turns her attention from saving the manatees to the film’s funniest gag, dropping a song called “Just Look Up.” Unless you hate the characters as much as I do, in which case, stick around through the credits for two bonus epilogues, which appear right around the point Netflix auto-directs you to the “Tiger King” sequel, or something else that makes you wish an asteroid would just wipe us all out already. You know what they say about cockroaches’ capacity to survive the end of the world, right?

Comet denial isn’t the same thing as climate-change skepticism, obviously, but once we do acknowledge the problem, we can probably all agree that a Jobs-Musk-Branson billionaire isn’t the person to fix it (or in this case, to mine the comet for precious resources rather than destroying it). McKay’s tone may be grating, even if you don’t have to look far to see some version of what he’s ranting about in the real world. That makes “Don’t Look Up” a different kind of disaster movie, where the threat isn’t what’s to come so much as the state of affairs as they now stand.

Reviewed at Regency Bruin Theatre, Los Angeles, Nov. 18, 2021. MPAA Rating: . Running time: 138 MIN.

• Production: A Netflix release and presentation of a Bash Original Content, Hyperobject Industries production. Producers: Adam McKay, Kevin Messick. Executive producer: Jeff Waxman. Co-producers: Ron Suskind, David Sirota, Jennifer Mandeloff, Cate Hardman.
• Crew: Director: Adam McKay. Screenplay: Adam McKay; story: Adam McKay & David Sirota. Camera: Linus Sandgren. Editor: Hank Corwin. Music: Nicholas Britell.  
• With: Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Mark Rylance, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Chiklis.

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Don’t Look Up (2021) review – a savage American political satire

This review of the Netflix film Don’t Look Up (2021) does not contain spoilers. 

Anyone who quotes Jack Handy in the first five minutes of a movie is a true genius in my book because he recognizes genius. So, does that mean I’m a true genius based on the fact that I’m calling Adam McKay’s savage American political satire his best film ever? That’s because Don’t Look Up is unlike any satire you’ve ever seen. Well, except the ones that seemed like a satire on CNN and Fox News the past five years. That’s because most have decided to learn to stop worrying and love the bomb , administration, W hite House , covid , comet  just plain chaos.

You can have your Ron Burgundys, Michael Burrys, Jared Vennetts, Champ Kinds, and Brick Tamlands (well, maybe not Brick), I’ll take your Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonard Dicaprio), and Ph.D. student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) who discovered a deadly comet hurtling towards earth, the film’s political leaders, President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her son/Chief of Staff Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill), and government scientist Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), who had an intimate moment with Sting that is more horrifying than anything coming down from the heavens.

It all sounds absurd. It’s not like we have faced the worst global pandemic that has put the world in danger over the past twenty months. It’s not like the oval office put off production of masks so they could hand that off to big business to spend tax dollars at an overrated premium. Or the fact that the country became so split to the far right and left, they practically met back up in the middle? That is where Mark Rylance’s Peter Isherwell, over the tech and social media platform company BASH, comes in. He wants to monetize somehow the McGuffin that keeps racing towards the earth and is going to end the human race. Hey, whoever said capitalism has its limits?

There are so many great performances, subplots, and bits that go into Don’t Look Up that I cannot describe them all here. Dicaprio might have given his funniest and most unhinged performance as a scientist who can’t seem to get the decision-makers or media members to see just how serious this situation is. I could not get enough of Jonah Hill’s take on a spoiled, unimpressive son of the President who was handed his position of Chief Staff (not to mention the joke of the head of NASA whose resume consists of being an Anosteglogist). Even a running gag of General Themes (played by veteran actor Paul Guilfoyle) charging money for free snacks, to begin with, sums up government spending perfectly. Many may question that point of that scene, and with good reason. But what makes it so funny and different is because it has never been done before.

It’s all conjured up in a way that’s entertaining and genuinely terrifying because, even if satirical, the fact is the situation is still fresh and current. I have a feeling many may find the humor too much of a comic sketch. For those who would like to have their political satire more like the Barry Levinson movie I mentioned above, I would point to Dr. Strangelove having no problem using highly exaggerated characters and situations. The use of social media today was not around 25 years ago and has pulled back the curtain on what a farce politics can be. McKay just adds disaster movies like Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and Melancholia to the mix.

In others words, what Jason Orlean would say, Adam McKay times that s**t perfectly.

What did you think of the Netflix film Don’t Look Up (2021)? Comment below. 

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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Don’t Look Up review: Jennifer Lawrence is back to business in this punchy, funny climate change satire

The same facet of her personality that made her hollywood’s ‘cool girl’, obsessed over and ridiculed in equal measure, has also proven to be her greatest strength as an actor, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Adam McKay. Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet. Cert 15, 138 minutes

If anyone’s the right person to deliver the news that the world is ending, it’s Jennifer Lawrence . There’s always something firm and direct about her performances – free of florid mannerisms, or the impulse to romanticise suffering. The same facet of her personality that made her Hollywood’s “cool girl”, obsessed over and ridiculed in equal measure, has also proven to be her greatest strength as an actor. In short, Lawrence doesn’t bullsh**t. Neither does her character in Adam McKay ’s punchy, funny satire Don’t Look Up .

Kate Dibiasky is an astronomy grad student who’s desperately trying to convince the world that a comet is about to hit the Earth and destroy all human life. There’s nothing particularly flashy about the role – the big, awards-bait monologue goes to her co-star Leonardo DiCaprio , who plays Kate’s professor with the kind of twitchy feverishness that he’s always excelled in. But as the heavily publicised return from her acting sabbatical, it’s perfect. Kate faces person after person unwilling to accept their impending doom. The look of disgust that creeps over Lawrence’s face, as if someone were slowly lowering her hand into a bucket of pond slime, made me realise exactly how much I’ve missed watching her on screen.

When Kate goes to the White House with photographic evidence that the comet she discovered will hit Earth and trigger an extinction-level event, do they immediately pull an Armageddon and muster a crew to nuke the thing into oblivion? Of course not. The midterms are coming up, and with President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) already trying to manage the blowback from her controversial Supreme Court nominee, news of an apocalypse won’t reflect well in her numbers. “Let’s sit tight and assess,” she ultimately rules, in an exquisitely painful sequence where McKay amplifies the tension by intermittently zooming in on DiCaprio’s panic-stricken baby blues and Streep’s elegant hands brushing back hair. And though the impulse might be to look for a Trump comparison, Orlean is really some hideous hybrid of every modern president, Democrat and Republican, all of them guilty at some point of bowing to self-interest.

No one else is of much help – the media’s fixation on commodifying the truth is captured in the ghoulish hyena cackles of daytime talk-show hosts Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry). Mark Rylance’s timorous, Willy Wonka-adjacent tech CEO Peter Isherwell inevitably starts to wonder whether the comet can be monetised. His presentations begin with a warning to the audience that there should be no direct eye contact, coughing, or negative facial expressions. Who could he possibly be based on?

There’s nothing subtle about Don’t Look Up . It’s a clear-cut metaphor for the climate crisis – hence the use of DiCaprio, a well-known activist in the field. It also applies somewhat to the pandemic. But obviousness has been the mark of McKay as a filmmaker since he switched from straight comedies, like Anchorman and Step Brothers , to the political didacticism of The Big Short and Vice . Those last two played a little too much like slideshow lectures on the financial crisis and War on Terror – occasionally smug or patronising in tone. Don’t Look Up is an ideal middle ground, detached enough from reality that it can function as pure satire, with the obviousness of it all only further fuelling the absurdity. The film pitches a small group of sensible protagonists – Lawrence, DiCaprio, Rob Morgan’s coolheaded Nasa official, and Timothée Chalamet’s skateboarding GenZer – against some of the most terrifying veneers ever put on film, all puffed-up parodies of the capitalistic drive. And it does very well to capture the feeling that the entire world is losing its mind.

Ariana Grande pops up at one point, essentially playing herself, and delivers a song that features the chorus “We’ve really f***ed up.” There’s something oddly satisfying about the way McKay's film lets us laugh at our own doom.

‘Don’t Look Up’ is out on Netflix now

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‘Don’t Look Up’ Review: Get Ready to Root for the Comet

Adam McKay’s obvious and condescending satire feels like a mediocre ‘SNL’ sketch stretched to 2.5 hours.

In 2018, I defended director Adam McKay ’s mid-credits scene in Vice . In the scene teenage girls are disinterested in politics and more interested in the next Fast & Furious movie. While other moviegoers found this hypocritical and condescending from McKay, I empathized with his feelings that a disengaged populace is bound to keep repeating its mistakes, and that the election of Donald Trump was clearly why the filmmaker chose to make Vice —as both a condemnation and as a warning. Well, it turns out I was wrong, and McKay just likes feeling holier-than-thou than his audience as if he’s the only person that’s read a newspaper or opened a book. His latest film, Don’t Look Up , makes all of its points about America’s ills—our politics, our media, our capitalist overlords, and our identities—within the first 20 minutes and then keeps going for another 125 minutes. If you somehow weren’t aware that our polarization and capitalist interests makes us unable to solve any problems, then McKay is happy to beat you over the head with that simplistic observation.

Astronomers Dr. Randall Mindy ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) and doctoral student Kate Dibiasky ( Jennifer Lawrence ) have discovered that a comet is heading straight for Earth and will destroy our planet in about six months. Unfortunately, in our media-saturated landscape, spreading that information out to the masses and getting the Trump-like President Janie Orlean ( Meryl Streep ) and her idiot son/chief of staff Jason ( Jonah Hill ) to respect the gravity of the situation is next to impossible. After Orlean decides to cover up the comet’s arrival due to the midterms, Mindy, Dibiaksi, and fellow scientist Dr. Clayton “Teddy” Oglethorpe ( Rob Morgan ) take their revelations to the press, but still can’t break through. Even when Orlean’s interests shift and she decides to deflect the comet, her plans are interrupted by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Isherwell ( Mark Rylance ), who wants to mine the comet for its valuable resources.

RELATED: 'Don't Look Up' Trailer Reveals Adam McKay's Political Dark Comedy With Leo DiCaprio & Jennifer Lawrence

While the clear metaphor here is for climate change, you could also apply the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is that in a polarized society like ours, we’ve reached an epistemological crisis where scientific facts simply don’t command our respect, actions, or even our undivided attention. We’d like to believe we’re rational creatures despite all evidence to the contrary, but in the face of certain doom, we’ll simply retreat into facile entertainment (represented by the celebrity couple Riley Bina ( Ariana Grande ) and DJ Chello ( Scott Mescudi )), entertainment masquerading as news programming (represented by anchors played by Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett ), social media, and all other forms of entertainment that McKay clearly despises but feels like is the only way we’re going to pay attention to what’s important.

That strategy worked for McKay in 2015’s The Big Short because financial concepts are complicated. The average person doesn’t know what a credit default swap is or why they keep hearing “sub-prime mortgage,” and part of the way the financial industry is able to leverage its power is by making people feel like they’re too dumb to participate. Vice doesn’t work as well, but it still has some lessons to teach like the importance of the Unitary Executive theory and how there’s a direct line from the George W. Bush administration to the Trump administration. Still, you can see McKay’s frustration with the American populace seeping through in Vice , and now it’s at a full primal scream in Don’t Look Up .

The problem is that McKay’s scream has nothing to add to the conversation that we don’t already know. We’re all living through the same pandemic as he is. Everyone sees how users on social media take sides over the efficacy of vaccines. McKay’s fatalism isn’t wrong; it’s just obvious and condescending. Yes, we’re polarized because of a confluence of political goals, capitalist goals, and a news-as-entertainment apparatus compounded by social media, but is the layperson really unaware that this is happening? Or to go one step further, does McKay think that this film can convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with him? Don’t Look Up is not a sneak attack, but an angry screed, and no one wants to be lectured to for two and a half hours on a topic they already understand. McKay’s major frustration seems to be that no one is behaving rationally without really grasping a firm understanding of identity politics. Yes, media and politics can further polarization, but in a film so devoid of empathy, McKay has no hope of reaching anyone beyond those who already agree with him.

McKay’s conclusion about his angry scream of a film is, “Well, at least I tried,” but Don’t Look Up isn’t much of an effort. It’s not much of an effort to make a basic, tired observation and not add anything we don’t already know. It’s not much of an effort to make a film packed with well-meaning famous people and get Netflix to pay for it. It’s not much of an effort to make a film where almost every single character is inept or corrupt but then intercut it with random “life” images to try and also make the case that we’re worth saving (the editing, in particular, is atrocious as every jump cut and cutaway screams “Get it?!” to the action happening in the scene).

All that’s left is a film that feels overwhelmingly smug. It’s the commenter who jumps into a conversation and says, “Why are we not talking about this ,” and yet McKay answers his own question—we’re not talking about it because we’re not powerful enough to avert disaster. Don’t Look Up is not a cautionary tale but rather a fatalistic refrain we’ve heard countless times before. It doesn’t have a single original insight and it’s too blithely contemptuous of everyone and everything to remember to tell a good joke. It’s an unrelentingly tedious experience where I agree with all of McKay’s points and find the manner in which he chooses to make them absolutely insufferable.

Don't Look Up opens in theaters on December 10th and arrives on Netflix on December 24th.

KEEP READING: Why Adam McKay's Comedies and Dramas Are More Similar Than You Think

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Don't Look Up

2009, Horror, 1h 38m

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Don't look up   photos.

A crew filming a movie in Transylvania accidentally releases an old spirit that drives them insane.

Rating: R (Gore|Horror Violence)

Genre: Horror

Original Language: English

Director: Fruit Chan

Producer: Yôko Asakura , Brian Cox , Anant Singh

Writer: Brian Cox , Hiroshi Takahashi

Runtime: 1h 38m

Cast & Crew

Reshad Strik

Marcus Reed

Henry Thomas

Carmen Chaplin

Romy Bardoc

Kevin Corrigan

Alyssa Sutherland

Lothaire Bluteau

Shiloh Fernandez

Robert Towers

Rachael Murphy

Ben DiGregorio

Olt's Cameraman

Screenwriter

Hiroshi Takahashi

Yôko Asakura

Anant Singh

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Tony Humecke

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Hang-Sang Poon

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Chris Wright

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‘Don’t Look Up’ is a satire in the mold of ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and ‘Idiocracy’

“Don’t Look Up” exemplifies a vanishing breed in mainstream cinema: the Great American One-Off, a movie designed not as a sequel, brand-extender or franchise-builder (or launchpad for same), but as something simply to be enjoyed in one sitting — full stop, with no lifetime multiversal obligations attached.

For that alone, writer-director Adam McKay should be commended. With such past films as “Step Brothers” and “ Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby ” and, more recently the fact-based dramedies “ The Big Short ” and “ Vice ,” McKay has proved adept at a form that, in an age of binge-streaming and never-ending sagas, feels as archaic as a Charlie Chaplin one-reeler. With “Don’t Look Up,” McKay is excavating an even rarer resource within that long-buried vein, creating a political satire that invites comparison to such canonical classics as “ Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb ,” “ Wag the Dog ” and “ Idiocracy .”

The 34 best political movies ever made

“Don’t Look Up” might be too shaggy, and tonally spotty, to gain immediate access to that pantheon. But it comes bracingly close. As the film opens, a bored graduate student in astronomy named Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) is roused from her torpor by the sight of a comet on her computer screen. A few moments later, she discovers that its trajectory is headed straight toward Earth. Her adviser, Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) confirms her suspicions. After a panicked call to NASA, Kate and Randall are on their way to Washington, where they will need to convince President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) that the extinction-level event due to arrive in six months might be worth her attention.

Based on a story McKay co-wrote with David Sirota, “Don’t Look Up” bristles with the combustible elements of absurdity, observational humor and seething outrage that give the best political satires their edge: Here, the comet is a fitting metaphor for climate change, the covid pandemic or any number of threats that, because of hyperpolarization and a dumbed-down populace, alarming numbers of Americans choose to ignore. President Orlean’s political affiliation is never explicitly stated, but her signature gimme cap and son-slash-chief of staff (played with bratty bro-tastic contempt by Jonah Hill) bear the unmistakable whiff of the Former Guy. Still, “Don’t Look Up” is less interested in shooting fish in a partisan barrel than exploring the vagaries of human nature — at their most infuriating, inexplicable and, sometimes, disarmingly endearing.

DiCaprio, his leading-man features hidden behind a frumpy beard and nerdy glasses, completely disappears into his role as a distracted academic who is wholly unprepared for the media firestorm he ignites, and in which he’s forced to navigate sudden, Fauci-level fame. Lawrence’s hair and makeup aren’t nearly as convincing (her severe red bangs and nose piercings are particularly distracting), but she reminds viewers of her gift for comic timing, such as when she expertly cadges a Xanax from her nervous colleague outside the Oval Office. Streep plays Orlean as a cigarette-sneaking cipher, who winds up leveraging Randall and Kate’s warning for her own interests. Less successful is Mark Rylance as a strange tech titan named Peter Isherwell, an eminence grise of prominent white teeth, Julian Assange-like hair and irritatingly gnomic pronouncements.

The Isherwell segments of “Don’t Look Up” grow as tiresome as the character himself and, at over two hours, the movie often feels unnecessarily padded. But when it’s on-pace, it feels absolutely on point in an era awash in mutual mistrust and willed disbelief, which McKay conjures with withering accuracy in amusing set pieces and choice one-liners. (“We’re for the jobs the comet will create,” Kate’s parents say apologetically when she seeks solace in her hometown.)

Indeed, “Don’t Look Up” may be less a political satire than a sociocultural one: A subplot featuring a celebrity couple played by Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, culminating in a hilariously over-the-top benefit concert, attains the Platonic ideal of parody at which a scene feels surreal and all too accurate at the same time.

Delivering swift, stinging kicks to everything from anti-intellectualism to the excesses of celebrity culture, social media and infotainment-ized news, “Don’t Look Up” eventually goes deeper than cheap and easy snark. As the movie wends its way to what becomes its depressingly obvious conclusion, McKay finds room for unexpected humanism and generosity. When Kate meets a skateboarder named Yule (Timothée Chalamet), the two embark on a friendship that punctuates the film with genuine sweetness — especially during an unexpectedly tender concluding scene. Not content with simply stoking rage and self-righteous superiority, McKay dares to infuse “Don’t Look Up” with an authentic, unironic sense of grief. Sincerity might be the most daring move of all in a film that, at its angriest and most amusing, doesn’t mind tacking perilously close to real life.

R.  At area theaters; available Dec. 24 on Netflix. Contains strong language throughout, some sexual material, graphic nudity and drugs. 138 minutes.

Bloody first trailer for Euphoria star's new horror movie with a great Rotten Tomatoes score is here – and it's bonkers

Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick, and more, releases on August 9

The first trailer for Godzilla x Kong 's Dan Stevens and Euphoria star Hunter Schafer's new movie Cuckoo is here – and from the two-minute clip, it already promises to be a blood-soaked, bonkers body horror.

Written and directed by Tilman Singer, the movie – which is currently rated 76% on Rotten Tomatoes – centers on 17-year-old Gretchen, who reluctantly moves to the German Alps with her father (Marton Csokas) and his new wife Beth (Jessica Henwick), after he lands a job at the resort there. Upon arrival, they're greeted by the place's curious owner, Mr. König, who quickly takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen's mute half-sister Alma. 

Things soon descend into trippy, terrifying chaos, however, when Gretchen begins working at the holiday destination, and starts getting plagued by strange noises and bloody visions that lead her to making a shocking discovery.

"You look like you don't belong here," Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey's mysterious character whispers to Gretchen in the promo, which you can watch above, while the latter is manning reception one evening. An ominous hint at what's to come, no doubt...

What follows is a montage of increasingly disturbing sequences, that see Gretchen terrorized by a slack-jawed entity with big black holes where its eyes should be. "If I were you," König says to a hospitalized Gretchen in one scene, "I wouldn't want to get hurt even more." If the rest of the trailer is anything to go by... she certainly doesn't heed his advice...

"There are already few movies that promise a showdown for the ages between great actors like Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, though this is only a fraction of what's in store in Cuckoo," writes Collider's Chase Hutchinson in his glowing review. "It's a goofy, gory horror romp unlike anything you've ever seen."

"Singer seems to be working on another level," says Moveable Fest's Stephen Saito , as Bloody Disgusting's Meagan Navarro describes the flick as "refreshingly unconventional and unpredictable."

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Cuckoo releases in US cinemas on August 9. For more, check our list of the  best horror movies  of all time, or our guide to the most exciting  upcoming horror movies  heading our way. 

I am an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.

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Kristen Wiig Says Her Kids Shiloh and Luna 'Don't Always Think' She's Funny

The comedian shares her 4-year-old twins with husband Avi Rothman

Amy Sussman/Getty

Kristen Wiig has played some tough audiences, but nothing is harder than getting her two kids to laugh.

On Thursday, April 3, the comedian, 50, appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show and spoke about how motherhood had affected her comedy. Wiig — who shares her 4-year-old twins, Shiloh and Luna, with husband Avi Rothman — said that she's had some mixed results when joking around with her kids.

“I’m definitely trying hard at home with them because they’re not — they don’t always think I’m funny," the Palm Royale star admitted.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“I remember one time, my daughter, she was eating and she had potatoes. And she was like, she was playing with the potatoes and saying it was like a boat, or whatever. And she was like, ‘Look!’ And I was like, ‘Oh is that a bo-tato?' " she recalled, while speaking to Clarkson.

"And I thought it was funny. And the way she looked at me, I was like, 'I’m so terrified. You’re never gonna have a sense of [humor],' " the mom of two said. "I mean it’s not that funny. But the way she looked at me was just like, 'No.' She was like, ‘No. No more.’ ” 

Dia Dipasupil/Getty

Last month, Wiig opened up about her path to motherhood while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter . Looking back on her experience with in vitro fertilization (IVF), the actress recounted what a "struggle" it was.

"It was such a struggle," Wiig said of the process. "When you go through it, you meet other people who are going through it, and it's almost like this secret little — the whispering conversation at a party. It feels like not a lot of people talk about it."

"It is such a private thing, but maybe it doesn't have to be," added Wiig, who seldom opens up about her family and also chooses not to be on social media. "It's part of my story and part of how I got my amazing family."

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Screen Rant

Cillian murphy's new movie is a reminder to watch an underrated 1-year-old thriller show.

Cillian Murphy's latest critically acclaimed historical drama serves as the perfect reminder to watch an underrated but gripping 1-year-old show.

This article briefly mentions Ireland's Magdelene Laundries and the oppression against women in the religious facilities.

• Cillian Murphy's latest movie should spark interest in an underrated miniseries about Ireland's Magdalene Laundries.
• The Woman in the Wall, a crime drama thriller, delves into the dark history of Magdalene Laundries.

Cillian Murphy's latest 2024 movie serves as a reminder to watch an underrated but compelling 1-year-old miniseries. Owing to his performances in shows and movies like Peaky Blinders and 28 Days Later , Cillian Murphy has been a household name for quite some time. However, the actor garnered a new level of fame and acclaim after brilliantly portraying the titular physicist in Christopher Nolan's magnum opus Oppenheimer .

With an Academy Award under his belt, it is now hard not to look forward to what Cillian Murphy will star in after Oppenheimer . While some details surrounding his upcoming film, Blood Runs Coal , have already emerged, even his latest movie after Oppenheimer has earned critical acclaim. Surprisingly, the movie also has a lot in common with an obscure 1-year-old show.

Every Cillian Murphy Sci-Fi Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

The woman in the wall is perfect to watch before small things like these, like small things like these, the woman in the wall focuses on the history of magdalene laundries and their impact..

Based on Claire Keegan’s novella of the same name, Small Things Like These sheds light on the painful realities of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries, where more than 10,000 women were kept for rehabilitation. In these church-run religious facilities, women were not only forced to work without any form of payment but even their children were taken from them and given to affluent families for adoption. After its Berlin Film Festival premiere on 15 February 2024, the film has earned unanimous acclaim from critics, who have also praised Cillian Murphy for his portrayal of a coal merchant named Bill.

Considering its acclaim, historical significance, and the fact that the Oscar winner, Cillian Murphy , is its lead, Small Things Like These should be on everyone's watchlist. However, before viewers check out the Cillian Murphy movie, they should watch an obscure but compelling TV series, The Woman in the Wall , which dabbles with similar narrative elements. Like the book adaptation, The Woman in the Wall draws a heartbreaking picture of the struggles faced by the women held in the oppressive environment of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries.

Similar to Small Things Like These , The Woman in the Wall also adopts several real historical facts in its overarching storyline but unfolds more like a fictional drama. Both the show and the movie walk audiences through the perspectives of individuals who are powerless against the religious systems that run these systems but still try to do something to change them. With so much in common between the two, both Small Things Like These and The Woman in the Wall demand attention.

The Woman In The Wall's Magdalene Laundries Explained: Is The Irish Kilkinure Convent Real?

Why the woman in the wall deserves more attention, the woman in the wall has both depth and sensitivity.

With Cillian Murphy as its lead, Small Things Like These is already garnering a lot of attention. However, The Woman in the Wall remains relatively underrated and deserves recognition because of the sensitivity and depth with which it portrays historical injustices . To get viewers hooked, The Woman in the Wall also presents its historical drama as a murder mystery thriller, which unrolls like a season of True Detective . It also features memorable performances from Ruth Wilson and Daryl McCormack, who convincingly portray the show's central dynamic duo.

How The Woman In The Wall Compares To Small Things Like These (Based On Reviews)

Small things like these has had a better critical response than the woman in the wall.

Although both the show and the movie focus on similar themes and use similar historical elements as narrative devices, the Cillian Murphy movie has slightly better reviews. The Woman in the Wall has a critics' score of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 82%, establishing that most critics and viewers enjoyed it. However, it must be noted that only 28 reviewers have reviewed the series on Rotten Tomatoes because of its relative obscurity. While some reviews praised the show for its performances, others expressed dissatisfaction with its use of genre conventions.

Small Things Like These , on the other hand, has 23 critical reviews and a score of 83%. Most critics have commended it for its moral clarity and ability to haunt viewers with its realistic depiction of the impact of the Magdalene Laundries . Many have also mentioned how Cillian Murphy's performance and ability to immerse himself in his characters adds even more heft to the film's poignant historical drama.

The Woman in the Wall

The Woman in the Wall is a 2023 crime-drama thriller series created by Joe Murtaugh. When a woman named Lora wakes up to discover a body in her home, she is forced to investigate and uncover the truth behind the body - even if it means she may be the murderer.