“Long live the end, long live the end, long live the end of the world”: this is the Christmas carol that proposes to sing Dont look up by Adam McKay, available December 24 on Netflix. The ritornello sums up this ferocious comedy well since our good old earth is going to take a big comet on the corner of the muzzle. And that humanity is about to bow out.
The director of Vice or from The Big Short do not go with the back of the spoon. There is no doubt quickly that the disaster will happen, so it is not from this suspense that lies the interest of the film. His killing game therefore focuses on the reactions of humans who know they are doomed in the short term but who refuse to believe it. The latter are embodied by the best of Hollywood: Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet to name a few. All of them make tons of them for the viewing pleasure of the viewer.
Stupidity in the face of the Apocalypse
Don’t Look Up (“Don’t look up there” captioned Cosmic denial in French) is the slogan of the President of the United States camped by Meryl Streep who refuses to believe scientists and their predictions. “The times ask us to laugh at everything, to be light and colorful, to continue to smile even if everything is collapsing around us”, explains Adam McKay to our colleagues at the magazine
Cinemateaser. If he laughs at the America he knows well, you don’t have to look very far to identify with this story with a universal message. We obviously think of films like 2012 by Roland Emmerich or Armageddon by Michael Bay sprayed with a good dose of Vitriol.
Don’t Look Up made it his mission to be funny. And it works! The stupidity, the greed and the frank unconsciousness of the characters make sparks. Everyone takes it for their number in this farce: politicians, the media and the population are just as scratched for their chronic stupidity in the face of the tragedy announced. Adam McKay does not aim for realism but his cheerful charge hits the mark until the two post-credits sequences not to be missed. So yes, we say “long live the Apocalypse!” When it is shown in such a funny and well-sketched way.