An unintelligent comedy by an intelligently comedic director, Don’t Look Up fails to be humorous. There is a reason why the dystopian worlds of Black Mirror never try to be funny: they know better.

As prophesised, the end is nigh. Temperatures rise and carbon footprints keep increasing their shoe size, global warming seems to be the hot button topic of the 21^st century – the hallmark of humanity’s success lies in our blissful ignorance. And we keep talking about it.

Don’t Look Up is neither a factual discussion on the ideocracies of our corrupt governments nor a slapstick satire on the absurdity of our present; it is a hollow metaphor that offers nothing new on the matter, shooting itself in the foot as it resembles those it is laughing at.

The world is ending. To be precise, in six months a cataclysmic meteor will hit Earth, subsequently ending all human life unless something is done about it. Discovered by brash and impassioned PhD candidate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her quaintly anxious professor, Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), the unlikely duo makes it their (short) life’s mission to spread awareness on the planet’s impending doom.

As a satire, it is clear what director Adam McKay is trying to achieve: by substituting one apocalypse for another, we need to learn from our fictitious counterparts and wake up before it is too late. Kate and Randall’s frustrations grow exponentially as they are laughed at, ignored, and mocked for trying to get both populace and politicians to heed their calls. Obviously, no one listens and if by chance someone accidentally has the common sense to trust science, then money will quickly persuade them otherwise. This is McKay’s downfall.

Every scene, every drab joke that is just another in an endless list of social media related jabs, is all too on the nose. I understand the message and I understand it is important, but unfortunately McKay is too late to the party.

There is no freshness, nothing that I haven’t already seen, heard, or preached myself. I should be elated that a film has finally chosen to capture my own frustrations, but it only frustrates me more as I have to sit through an empty lecture.

It is as if McKay has made two films and couldn’t decide which to finish, instead cutting the baby in half and sticking both ends together. On one hand, it is a satirical comedy that pokes fun at our media-driven and bumbling bureaucratic leaders and on the other it is an important note to those of us who haven’t read the news in twenty years. Mashed together, the contrasting styles reject each other spectacularly, incoherently switching from dramatic to slapstick every other shot.

And it is impossible to ignore the glaring issue. I tried to take it seriously and ended up being burned for it as the unrealistic world that McKay has built falls the moment it is put under a microscope. I also tried to not take it seriously, but the one-note comedy that never ceases to feel forced fails at being funny, especially when the over-dramatic and moronic characters act as if I am watching an original school play. I eventually gave up on trying to relate to the robotic plot, especially after realising that even the most human characters are more like caricatures: one-dimensional and stereotypical.

If a NASA-vouched for, tenured professor from a university renowned for its astronomy department, told you that a meteor is going to wipe out all life, that there is a 100% chance of it happening and hands you evidence, would you laugh them out of the room? Even in Armageddon they took the asteroid seriously.

McKay’s satire is nothing like the politically-mocking world of The Thick of It – by choosing to make everyone in power look like a fool, you ignore the reality of the situation. There is no message here, only a broken record that pats itself on the back for doing a single Google search.