在宏伟的科幻小说传统中，“不要抬头”使用灾难电影框架作为基于现实的危机的隐喻，一颗巨大的彗星冲向地球作为对解决气候变化漠不关心的替代品。然而，这部星光熠熠、极具挑衅性的讽刺作品有时会偏离正轨，其宽广的语气在一定程度上削弱了其令人钦佩的品质。
在其核心，作家兼导演亚当·麦凯（与记者/活动家大卫·西罗塔共同编写了剧本）就当前政治和媒体的功能失调状态发表了一篇非常尖锐的论文，其中每个人都目光短浅以至于无法专注于生存威胁。标题反映了不可避免的终点，用一种将你的头埋在沙子里的方法来应对即将到来的厄运。
当天文学教授兰德尔·明迪（莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥饰）和他的博士学位出现时，就出现了这种荒谬的窗口。学生凯特·迪比亚斯基（詹妮弗·劳伦斯饰）发现了这颗彗星，它的轨迹将在六个月多一点后与地球发生直接碰撞。
可以理解的是，他们的调查结果很快就传到了白宫，在那里总统（梅丽尔·斯特里普，因其性格的荒谬而受到不良影响）过于专注于她濒临灭绝的最高法院选择而无法专注于兰德尔所说的灭绝级事件。在来回无果之后，她得出结论，他们将“坐下来评估”情况。
从那里开始，“不要抬头”开始对我们的媒体和政治生态系统的一切进行严厉控告，来自快乐谈话新闻节目（由泰勒佩里和凯特布兰切特担任主播，以特别自我的身份脱颖而出）吸收了电视主播）到专注于流量和社交媒体模因的网站。
McKay 和 Sirota 对人们（尤其是在媒体中）很容易分心的问题进行了针对性的攻击，他们专注于凯特的头发和衣服，而忽略了她信息的实质。
然而，试图说明这一点的尝试朝着不同的方向疯狂地倾斜，从看到利用彗星自然资源获利的机会的科技亿万富翁（马克·里朗斯，采用非世界口音）到总统的负责人工作人员（乔纳·希尔），他只能看到威胁如何影响中期选举。
尽管如此，“不要抬头”一直被转移注意力，部分原因是在次要角色中堆积了名人（见证蒂莫西·查拉梅特（Timothée Chalamet）无缘无故迟来的入场），并追求一些次要情节来缓解这些有缺陷的领导人是否会发现问题的紧张局势采取行动的毅力和清醒。
迪卡普里奥（他的气候变化激进主义包括制作纪录片“冰上火”）和劳伦斯都非常好，但其他许多大胆的名字基本上都是浮华的，有些不必要的橱窗装饰。
McKay 的“The Big Short”和“Vice”代表了他以阴暗讽刺的方式处理主要机构的最明显的先例，但这部电影也欠“奇异爱博士”的恩惠，用更高的（实际上，最高）赌注。标题无疑做了很多繁重的工作，捕捉了对不方便新闻的普遍反应。
正如它的意图一样，“不要抬头”使用讽刺来激发关于可能忽略危机的对话，直到为时已晚。这是一个发人深省的信息，但它通过一部参差不齐的电影的镜头向我们袭来。
“不要抬头”将于 12 月 10 日在部分影院首播，12 月 24 日在 Netflix 首播。评级为R。
'Don't Look Up' delivers a scathing satire that occasionally veers off course
In a grand science fiction tradition, "Don't Look Up" uses a disaster-movie framework as a metaphor for a reality-based crisis, with a huge comet hurtling toward Earth as a surrogate for indifference to addressing climate change. Yet this star-studded, extremely provocative satire at times veers off course itself, partially undermining its admirable qualities with the broadness of its tone.
At its core, writer-director Adam McKay (who wrote the script with journalist/activist David Sirota) delivers a very pointed treatise on the dysfunctional state of current politics and media, in which everyone is so myopic as to be unable to focus on an existential threat. The title reflects the inevitable endpoint of that, with a bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach to impending doom.
The window into that absurdity comes when astronomy professor Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his PhD. student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover the comet, whose trajectory will lead to a direct collision with Earth in a little over six months.
Understandably alarmed, their findings quickly reach the White House, where the president (Meryl Streep, poorly served by the ridiculousness of her character) is too preoccupied with her endangered Supreme Court pick to focus on what Randall describes as an extinction-level event. After fruitless back and forth, she concludes that they'll "sit tight and assess" the situation.
From there, "Don't Look Up" is off to the races with a scathing indictment of everything about our media and political ecosystem, from the happy-talk news show (anchored by Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett, standing out as especially self-absorbed TV anchors) to websites preoccupied with traffic and social-media memes.
McKay and Sirota deliver a spot-on attack on how easily distracted people (especially in media) are, fixating on Kate's hair and clothes and ignoring the substance of her message.
The attempts to make that point, however, careen wildly in different directions, from a tech billionaire (Mark Rylance, adopting a not-of-this-world accent) who sees opportunities to cash in on the comet's natural resources to the president's chief of staff (Jonah Hill), who can only see the threat in terms of how it might impact the midterm elections.
Still, "Don't Look Up" keeps getting sidetracked, thanks in part to piling up celebrities in minor roles (witness Timothée Chalamet's belated entrance for no particular reason) and pursuing subplots that drag out the tension on whether these flawed leaders will find the fortitude and sobriety to take action.
DiCaprio (whose climate-change activism included producing the documentary "Ice on Fire") and Lawrence are both very good, but many of the other bold-faced names basically serve as flashy and somewhat unnecessary window dressing.
McKay's "The Big Short" and "Vice" represent his most obvious antecedents in tackling major institutions in a darkly satiric way, but the film owes a debt to "Dr. Strangelove" as well, casting its net wider with higher (indeed, the highest) stakes. The title certainly does a lot of heavy lifting, capturing the prevailing response to inconvenient news.
As was clearly its intention, "Don't Look Up" uses satire to spur a conversation about potentially ignoring a crisis until it's too late. It's a sobering message, but one that comes barreling toward us through the lens of an uneven movie.
"Don't Look Up" premieres Dec. 10 in select theaters and Dec. 24 on Netflix. It's rated R.
