Hellboy actor Ron Perlman, who starred in Netflix's Don't Look Up opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, had some strong words for critics and journalists who reviewed the film unfavorably. Don't Look Up currently holds a 55% critic's rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 78% audience score, showing that while critics panned the film, regular viewers still liked it.
Netflix's Don’t Look Up is an apocalyptic political satire written, produced and directed by Adam McKay (Succession) and starring Lawrence (Hunger Games) and DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street) as two astronomers at Michigan State University who discover a giant meteor is cruising towards Earth, making total destruction of the world imminent. On a journey to warn the country that death is nigh, the pair run up against an ineffectual government, uninterested populace, and corporate greed.
In comments made to The Independent, a United Kingdom newspaper that gave the film a 4-star, mostly favorable review, Perlman said, “F*** you and your self-importance and this self-perpetuating need to say everything bad about something just so that you can get some attention for something that you had no idea about creating.” It was unclear whether his comments were targeting The Independent specifically or all critics in general. He went on, “It’s corrupt. And it’s sick. And it’s twisted.” Perlman did allow the journalists he insulted this: “it’s part of how the internet has almost killed journalism. And now journalism is trying to do everything they can to co-opt and maintain their importance.”
Running at two hours and eighteen minutes, many critics noted that the film felt bloated, unfocused, and depressing. The Hollywood Reporter described it as a “tiresome doomsday whoopee cushion.” The Guardian found Don't Look Up to have an interesting subject but a patronizing approach, writing in their review that the “script states the obvious as if everyone else is too stupid to realize it.” Don't Look Up defenders have pointed to Netflix's self-released stats indicating the film was the most-watched streaming film in the week of December 20-26, 2021. However, Netflix's streaming figures are notoriously hard to independently verify because the streamer does not make their metrics public.
Pitched as an allegory for climate change, Don't Look Up production was stalled by the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020 but shooting began November 2020 and finished by February 2021. It began streaming on Netflix on December 24, 2021. Some viewers noticed a “mistake” in the film that turned out to be purposefully left in the final cut: the entire crew, masked and in PPE, can be seen in the background of a shot. McKay clarified that he let the mistake stay in the film as it “commemorates [their] strange filming experience.”
Perlman seems to be saying digital media and "clickbait" culture are driving the slew of poor reviews of his film, possibly suggesting derogatory and negative reviews drive more online traffic to a site than positive reviews. He does not seem to hold the opinion that the film, which Rolling Stone called “a bomb of a movie hurtling right towards you,” might just not be that good. Ironic then, that Perlman's comments make for the perfect “journalism-killing” clickbait he claims to abhor.
Don't Look Up is now available on Netflix.
Source: The Independent
