With “Don’t Look up” one of the most anticipated films was recently released in cinemas in 2021, and it is also coming to Netflix just in time for Christmas. But the star-studded comedy with, among others, Leonardo DiCaprio is a big disappointment, as our author thinks. A comment.
What is it that makes Hollywood so irresistible? Sure, there are billions of dollars that are made and spent on the most elaborate film sets and the most expensive effects. But basically it’s mainly: Stars, stars and even more stars. Big and well-known names and beautiful faces that appear on posters and strut across the red carpet with the world at their feet. And nowhere is there more than the US dream factory that produced personalities loved around the world.
But where once a prominent name was enough to lure the masses into the cinemas, the demise of the actor has been described in many places for years. Even Dwayne Johnson, who is considered by many to be the biggest movie star in the world, is not safe from commercial flops (as “Baywatch” showed a few years ago, for example). People like Jennifer Lawrence (“The Hunger Games”) or Chris Pratt (“Jurassic World”) were or are lucky enough to work on big brands whose titles overshadow their own names and as soon as they move away from them, failure beckons them too (For example, for two in “Passengers”).
Hit guarantee Leonardo DiCaprio?
One who always seemed to be excluded from this was Leonardo DiCaprio. Without a doubt, he is the figurehead of his generation of actors, who were able to keep themselves in conversation with pop culture for decades (remember the many “Give this man an Oscar” memes years before he won “The Revenant”) and whose work was artistically like were commercially convincing. Leo is so much a superstar that he even helps comparatively bulky material, which one could almost push back into the arthouse cinema corner without him, to success – just “The Revenant” or “The Wolf of Wall Street”, for a three-hour period Biopic about a sleazy businessman doesn’t automatically scream for a ringing tills.
So casting him in a lead role seems like a safe bet, like now in Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” (“The Big Short”). And not only he is there, Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman can be seen along with many others – even the pop stars Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi play with them. What’s going to go wrong there? But the stars are still in descent and at least qualitatively none of them can do much – not even Leo.
Don’t look up: until everyone has figured it out
Anyone who has even dealt a little with films should have waited with great excitement for “Don’t Look Up”. A mega-starring appears for a satire-proven filmmaker in front of the camera in order to hold up their ugly grimace in the mirror to society. In the film, a huge comet races towards the earth and threatens to wipe out all life. The scientists know, but politicians don’t want to know anything about it until the approaching doom can be effectively instrumentalized for one’s own election campaign. The boulder is supposed to be blown up from space. Meanwhile, a huge corporation is planning to make hefty profits with it and the population is just going nuts and sending hate and false reports en masse through the airwaves, while science doesn’t know what to do. Sounds like a mixture of “Armageddon” and the current time reference in times of climate and corona crisis and could therefore be an excellent opportunity for profound statements and insights.
What the actors were burned for in the end, however, is a self-satisfied, technically certainly convincing rummage through well-known subject complexes. The internet and especially the social networks are so evil and not to mention the media and politicians – they are just vain, superficial megalomaniacs and only looking for their own benefit! We know and has been chewed through quite a few times in film history in its over-the-top form, which is why “Don’t Look Up” has little new to offer apart from stars and effects – Hollywood in its purest form, so to speak. Established greats such as Streep, Blanchett, Rylance, Hill or the still-shooting-star Chalamet make caricature-like performances that are covered with relish, but at the same time are dull and soon more annoying than entertaining. Because one thing is certain: the messages of the film are always clear very quickly and what then remains is riding around. And so the quickly cut glossy pictures become empty of content just as quickly, even though they pretend to be bursting with content.
Are there any Oscars for Netflix?
After all, Jennifer Lawrence raps quietly and secretly to the classic “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta f **** wit” and thus goes down in the annals of the best Wu-Tang recitations in film history – Emma, however, is undisputedly in first place Roberts with her rap for “CREAM” in “Nerve”. And Leo? If he has really mastered something in his repertoire, then without a doubt freaking out and outbursts of anger, of which there is a really epic one in “Don’t Look Up” and which was built in at his own request. Apparently Leo knows his strengths very well and not only knows how to use them, but also how to implement them if necessary. But director McKay didn’t know what to do with it or with the rest of the ensemble – “Don’t Look Up” as satire doesn’t bite courageously, it just yaps the familiar tepid air. And in view of the anticipation of this film and the team in front of and behind the camera, that is not only too little, but a bitter disappointment.
It is unclear whether it will be enough for at least a couple of Oscars, which Netflix is clearly looking at. “Don’t Look Up” has been showing in German cinemas since December 9, 2021 and has grossed a little more than half a million dollars worldwide (as of December 20) – terribly little, despite DiCaprio. However, the world is not shown in many cinemas around the world. And the result is not surprising in times of Corona and only two weeks before it will appear on the streaming service. At Netflix, “Don’t Look Up” will be released on Christmas Eve. And there he has a good chance of success, especially since the total number of hours seen in a title have recently become a much more important parameter for success for the provider. The film lasts just under 140 minutes – sometimes the length is a quality criterion after all.
This content was first published by TVSPIELFILM.de.