The biggest news coming out of the Oscars was Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, but the attention should’ve been towards the fact that “Don’t Look Up” very well could be the worst movie ever nominated for the “Best Picture” award, which is given out to the best movie in that respective year at the Oscars. 

The overall quality of movies since the COVID pandemic happened has decreased. Every movie maker nowadays seems to feel the need to have some sort of political message, and that is a major turn-off. “Don’t Look Up” is a perfect example of one of those movies. 

I like to go through all the best picture nominations every year so I can have an educated guess when picking the winners of the awards, and before watching I see the star-studded cast including Leonardo Dicaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill, so I was flabbergasted at how bad this film was. And it wasn’t just the plot and story these actors were thrown into: the actors weren’t good in their roles. 

Jonah Hill was an awful casting choice for the character Jason Orlean. Jason is the president’s son and stands by the president (Meryl Streep) in the White House most of the movie. Jonah Hill is one of the greatest and most versatile comedic actors of all time, however, Jason is a character who is serious, yes he cracks a few jokes in the movie, but ultimately he’s a character I could never see Jonah Hill playing. For instance he jokes about how these supposed “smart” doctors that discovered the comet, came from a college like Michigan State University, which I did find amusing. 

The actors just had no chemistry whatsoever and most scenes with Leonardo Dicaprio and Jennifer Lawrence were incredibly awkward. 

Although the plot has some unexpected twists, it’s an exhausted genre. Two unknown scientists from Michigan State University named Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover a comet measuring nine kilometers that will hit Earth in just six months. Mindy and Dibiasky immediately attempt to let people know of this by trying to contact the president directly and going to news outlets to spread the word, but everybody plays it off like it’s no big deal. The U.S government refuses to pay attention to it until a scandal comes out about the president, and she uses news about the comet to cover her tracks and distract the media. 

The movie attempts to send a message that society is blind and distracted when it comes to serious issues, such as climate change, but makes it funny and uses satire to get the message across to viewers. Obviously this does appeal to some people because not everyone hates it, but this kind of comedy is not for me. 

Now, I definitely get why people might like this movie, and I know a few people that did. These people also have different political views than me and very different movie tastes. So the movie definitely has a target audience. 

One thing I really liked about the movie was the two after-credit scenes. Both scenes involve what happened after the comet hits earth. One scene circles around Jason Orlean, and the other around the president and other civilians. 

The criteria and level of quality for a movie should, and has in past Oscars, be much higher. I can’t recall seeing a movie that is so lazy and bad get so much praise. And that goes back to people liking the movie: a movie doesn’t necessarily have to be great for people to love it. I can just hit certain audiences in a different way.

 In the end, it’s not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s not worth anyone’s precious time.