Don't Look Up (2021)

Direction: Adam McKay
Country: USA

Boasting an out-of-this-world ensemble cast that includes Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Timothée Chalamet and Jonah Hill, Don’t Look Up defrauds all expectations by functioning as an overextended, unexciting and pathetic apocalyptic satire. Writer-director Adam McKay, who delivered likable biographical dramas in the past such as The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018), totally misfires here, throwing himself headlong toward the ridiculous and attempting to embrace too many things at once in what is a 138-minute screening torture.

The story follows two lower-ranking Michigan astronomers, Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) and his PhD student Katie Dibiasky (Lawrence), who rush to the White House as soon as they realize that an unprecedented comet, wide in range, is heading toward the Earth. The impact will certainly destroy our planet, but in the oval office - the unqualified president Janie Orlean (Streep), her no-brains son and chief of staff, Jason (Hill), and their favorite scientist, Peter Isherwel (Rylance) - couldn’t care less. The astronomers are also not taken seriously when invited to a precarious TV show hosted by the brainless journalists Brie Enentee (Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry).

Staged to be funny, Don’t Look Up fails each and every move. I count no hits but rather thousands of misses in a film that, attempting to depict our times of disbelief in science in favor of conspiracy theories, misses the opportunity with the force of a 100-km wide comet moving at a jaw-dropping high speed.

What Carl Sagan would say? Don’t waste your time seeing this mess.

Vice (2018)

Direction: Adam McKay
Country: USA

Unfolding like a documentary, but adapted to the dynamic style of director Adam McKay (The Big Short), Vice tells the true story of former US vice-president Dick Cheney, whose quietness couldn't dissimulate a maniacal thirst for power. Encouraged by his controlling and super ambitious wife, Lynne (Amy Adams), Dick became one of the most powerful and shadowy leaders in American history. The character gains an interesting dimension thanks to Christian Bale (American Hustle; American Psycho; The Machinist), who put a lot of effort - he gained 40 pounds for this role - in another glorious appearance.

Structuring the film in a bold way, McKay uses a fictional narrator, an ex-war vet named Kurt (Jesse Plemons), who connects to the main character in an unthinkable way. This was sort of amusing during the first quarter of the film, especially since he puts forth some mordant lines. However, as the story advances, the facts become serious and the jokes lose their purpose. McKay showed indecision about which kind of tone to infuse, the critically informative or the inconsistently satirical. He simply didn’t give up any of them.

After the introductory part, the story winds back to 1963, making us aware of Dick’s alcoholic problem when young, a deciding factor that hampered him from graduating at Yale. However, under the protective wing of Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell) and following his own opportunistic instincts, he gradually becomes an influential political figure in several Republican administrations, working with presidents Nixon, Ford, and George W. Bush. It was with the latter in command, between 2001 and 2009, that he took hold of the vice-presidency, enjoying unprecedented power in a position that is usually more figurative than active.

Even moderately bored with the adopted tones and unable to find real tension throughout, I never lost interest in knowing more about this calculating man, who, among health problems, sees his gay daughter Mary (Alison Pill) fall out. In fact, and after thinking for a bit, I found these people uninteresting in all their cynicism. McKay captures everything at an accelerated pace and doesn’t miss an opportunity to play with the viewer. He even mounted a fake ending with credits and everything, just to make the film proceed a minute after.

Vice informs galore as it attempts to make the humoresque narrative work in its favor. It doesn’t always succeed and the scenes lack the heebie-jeebies that make political dramas triumph. For these reasons, mixed feelings arise whenever it comes to my mind.