Netflix’s star-studded comedy film Don’t Look Up is earning plenty of attention, though that’s not necessarily a good thing. The Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio-starring movie premiered on the streamer over Christmas weekend on Friday, Dec. 24, and while the film has soared to the top of the Top 10 movies chart in the U.S., where it has also managed to unseat The Witcher as the most popular title overall, and even cemented its place as the No. 1 title on Netflix across the globe, Don’t Look Up isn’t necessarily winning much love from critics.
Written and directed by Academy Award winner Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up stars Lawrence and DiCaprio as two relatively low-level astronomers who are the first to discover that a comet is on a collision course with earth. As the two embark on a media tour to warn humankind of the incoming danger, they are met with an underwhelming response, despite their definitive proof. In addition to Lawrence and DiCaprio, Don’t Look Up also stars Meryl Streep, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande and more.
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Although Don’t Look Up was among the most highly anticipated films to come from Netflix this year, not even the A-list cast could impress critics. The film has mostly been a flop among reviewers, with the movie currently only having a measly 50% score on Metacritic, indicating mixed or average reviews. It only generated a meager 55% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics consensus reads, “Don’t Look Up aims too high for its scattershot barbs to consistently land, but Adam McKay’s star-studded satire hits its target of collective denial square on.”
Digging into the reviews reveals that, according to critics, Don’t Look Up failed to live up to its potential. Writing for Rolling Stone in a review titled, “Don’t Look Up … Or You Might See One Bomb Of A Movie Hurtling Right Toward You,” critic David Fear wrote, “Don’t Look Up is a blunt instrument in lieu of a sharp razor, and while McKay may believe that we’re long past subtlety, it doesn’t mean that one man’s wake-up-sheeple howl into the abyss is funny, or insightful, or even watchable.” Robert Levin for Newsday wrote that “there’s nothing more excruciating than watching very famous people work entirely too hard to be funny.” The Wall Street Journal cautioned, “Don’t Look Up review: A Cosmic Disaster,” with The Daily Beast sharing that “it’s not a film with anything particularly interesting to say.”
It turns out that while enough people have watched Don’t Look Up to boost it to the top of the streaming charts – Netflix hasn’t released any viewership data for the film outside of its streaming chart rankings – most fans seem to be in agreement with critics. The audience has given Don’t Look Up just a 77% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which while significantly better than its critic’s score, isn’t necessarily the best. Don’t Look Up is available for streaming on Netflix. If the harsh critic reviews are enough to keep you from pressing play, the streamer has added dozens of titles throughout November, with dozens more set to be added in January 2022.
