Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a 2021 sci-fi comedy film, titled Don't Look
Up. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care. Young Astronomy PhD student Kate Dibiasky is
working with the Subaru Telescope in Michigan when she discovers a comet passing by near Earth.
Her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, congratulates her on her findings and after naming the comet
after her, they calculate its trajectory, coming to the conclusion that the comet
will hit Earth in six months and, because of its huge size, it will cause planet-wide extinction.
On the edge of panic, they call NASA to inform them of this discovery, and the head of Planetary
Defense Coordination Office, Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe tells them to come to D.C. so they can have a
meeting with the president about this issue, which is now considered classified information. They go
to the White House early in the morning and are left waiting the whole day without hearing a word
from the president, who is prioritizing taking care of a scandal involving one of her candidates.
Kate and Randall are sent to spend a night in a hotel, where they call their loved ones and
try to find comfort in their voices without being able to tell them what is going on.
Randall calls his wife June and his sons to check on them, and Kate talks to her boyfriend Phillip,
who works as a journalist for an important newspaper. The following day, Kate, Randall,
and Teddy finally get to see President Janie Orlean and the Chief of Staff Jason Orlean,
who also happens to be the president's son. They do not take their warnings seriously,
saying they are warned about the end of the world every month with excuses like economic collapse
and loose nukes, so for now, she wants them to sit and asses until the midterms are over.
Seeing as the White House will do nothing, Teddy wants them to leak the information to the press,
which could get them in trouble since talking about classified information is illegal, but it
is still better than dying to a comet. While Sir Peter Isherwell, tech billionaire CEO of BASH,
also learns of the incoming comet thanks to some astronomer friends of his; Phillip gets Kate and
Randall an interview with the New York Herald. They accept to publish their story, especially
when they confirm the data with other scientists and hear the White House denies ever meeting them,
but first, they want them to appear on the morning talk show "The Daily Rip",
hosted by Brie Evantee and Jack Bremmer. They are not taken seriously by the hosts either,
who think they must keep bad news light, and Kate snaps, getting angry on camera and pointing out
how terrifying the situation is before storming off. Randall does stay to finish the interview,
and after they are done, Brie invites him to have drinks with her later.
Afterward, The New York Herald's marketing team shows them the results of their presentation. The
singer that appeared before them talking about her break-up had more mentions on social media, Kate
has become a meme as an angry lady, and Randall is seen as extremely handsome for a scientist,
but nobody cares about what they had to say. The newspaper decides to cancel their support,
claiming Nasa said the data is not good enough, but they quickly realize the head of NASA, who
is not even an actual astronomer, is one of the president's donors and working under her agenda.
To make matters worse, Phillip takes advantage of Kate going viral and writes an article about how
he used to sleep with her, which she accepts as a break-up; and Randall can not keep himself out of
social media, arguing with anybody that questions his scientific knowledge and conspiracy theorists.
When the president finds herself as part of a bigger scandal involving some intimate pictures
of her private parts, she sends the FBI to bring Kate, Randall, and Teddy to her office again and
apologizes for having ignored them. Kate quickly picks up on the fact they are doing this just
because they are afraid to lose the midterms, but accepts to help anyway because getting to stop
the comet is the most important priority at the moment. The president makes a national broadcast,
announcing the comet is real and that they have a plan to destroy it: they will launch a spacecraft
that can strike the comet using nuclear weapons. Despite Randall's opinion that this should be a
mission guided by remote technology, Janie chooses General Benedict Drask to pilot the spacecraft,
because she thinks having a hero as the image of their plan will help people cope with the news.
Janie and Randall begin appearing in all kinds of tv shows and magazine covers as the event
goes viral on the internet, finally getting the attention it deserves. After appearing on "The
Daily Rip" again, Randall and Brie end up sleeping together while Teddy and Kate argue with comet
deniers on a conservative show. The day of the launch comes, and the event is broadcast globally.
The spacecraft successfully takes off, but General Drask's microphone is quickly muted because he
keeps saying incredibly bigoted things on camera. Everyone is ready to celebrate the fact the comet
will be gone soon, but when Isherwell arrives and talks privately to the president, they are
shocked to discover the spacecraft is coming back: Janie has canceled the mission. Some hours later,
while the world is still trying to understand what happened, Randall is assigned as Chief
Science Advisor to the White House and brought to an emergency cabinet meeting while Teddy and Kate
are left behind. It turns out the reasons why they canceled the mission is because Isherwell, who is
also one of the president's donors, has discovered that the comet is composed of trillions of dollars
worth of rare-earth minerals that technology manufacturers use in objects like phones, and
they have been running short of them because China owns most of the mines. The plan is to send some
drones to fragment the comet and let those smaller fragments fall into the ocean to be mined later.
Randall does not agree with this, especially when he realizes that the technology Isherwell
is going to use has not undergone scholarly peer review and every scientist that tried
to speak against it has been silenced, but the matter is out of his control now.
After the meeting, he gets together with Kate and Teddy in a bar and tells them all about Isherwell.
Some of the people overhear them and Kate decides they deserve to know the truth, so she announces
loudly for everyone to hear that the president will allow the comet to hit the planet so rich
people can get even richer. This incites a series of riots around the city, so the FBI arrests
Kate and charges her with sharing classified information and damage of private property,
but they agree to let her go if she signs a deal where she agrees not to talk about the subject in
public or media anymore and to get off the grid, which Kate obviously accepts and returns to her
little hometown in Illinois. Getting her old life back is not easy, since her parents will not take
her back because they support the government and do not want any traitors in their house.
She begins working as a cashier at a supermarket where he meets Yule and his friends,
who admire her and invite her to hang out with them. After discovering they have been stealing
from the market and letting them go anyway because she does not care anymore considering
the end of the world is coming, Kate accepts to join them, beginning a relationship with Yule.
Meanwhile, Randall continues to work for the president, thinking that is the only thing he
can do to help the planet in some way, and has an ongoing affair with Brie. This blows
up on his face when one evening, the two of them return to their hotel room and find June there,
waiting to surprise her husband. Randall does not even apologize, just tries to make up some
excuses, so June throws his pill bottles at him before leaving for good. After having an
argument with Isherwell about his faulty science and being told algorithms say he will die alone,
Randall appears on "The Daily Rip" and finally loses control. Furious, he yells on national
television and calls everyone out for not being more worried about the comet, which people had
started to believe is not real; he also points out how Isherwell is shutting up all scientists that
do not agree with him, that the president lied and that the whole administration has lost its mind.
The FBI catches him after this and offers him the same deal they gave Kate, so Brie breaks up with
him. Sometime later, Randall is driving back to Michigan and Kate is hanging out with Yule when
they both look at the sky and see the same thing: the comet is finally close enough to be visible by
the naked eye. The two of them record themselves with it and ask the world to see it, starting a
movement called "Look Up" that millions of people around the world join and make posts about on
the internet. Randall even starts appearing on tv again, calling the government out for their awful
plans, and even gaining the support of two famous singers that write a special "Just Look Up" song.
This causes Janie to retaliate with her own movement called "Don't Look Up",
which is supported by millions of conservative voters and conspiracy freaks that believe her when
she says Randall only wants them to be afraid and lose their freedom. Riots and protests take over
the streets while Russia, India, and China work together to send their own spacecraft to stop the
comet, but their launch fails and the spacecraft explodes. As the comet gets even closer and the
deniers finally start catching on the lies, Randall takes Kate and Yule grocery shopping
then drives them back to his hometown so they can spend their last day together as a family. Under
these extreme circumstances, June decides to take him back after admitting she cheated on him back
in college as well, and Teddy joins them shortly after as well. All of them have dinner together,
sharing anecdotes and sending one last prayer to god while waiting for the comet to strike. The
night of the launch, while waiting to get started, Janie asks Isherwell what the algorithms say her
death will be like, and he responds she will be killed by a bronteroc, whatever that may be.
The spacecraft takes off and they lose some of the drones, but Isherwell anticipated there was
a margin for error and claims everything is fine. However, he is incredibly wrong, and the rest of
drones explode as soon as they make contact with the comet. Knowing they will be dead for sure now,
Isherwell and Janie leave the premises to join other millionaires on a secret spaceship designed
to keep its passengers alive cryogenically so they can flee Earth before doom strikes.
Completely forgetting about her son, Janie calls Randall and offers him a place for him
and his wife, but he turns it down, wanting to stay with them until the end. People around the
world cling to their loved ones as the comet hits Earth and destroys life as we know it.
The only survivor to come out from under the ruins is Jason, who immediately celebrates
his life by taking a selfie. Twenty-two thousand seventy hundred forty years later,
the ship with millionaires finally finds a planet with an atmosphere similar enough to Earth's
for them to live in. Men and women are woken up from their cryogenic sleep and explore the area,
and when Janie sees a beautiful new animal and tries to approach it,
she is attacked by it, effectively getting killed by a bronteroc as predicted by the algorithms.