Netflix released a mockumentary Death to 2020 but it has not clicked with the audience as much as it was hoped to be. The venture features a star-studded cast which is pretty impressive.
It stars Hugh Grant, Lisa Kudrow, Samuel L Jackson, Joe Keery, Kumail Nanjiani, Tracey Ullman, Samson Kayo, and Diane Morgan. The venture had its narration from Laurence Fishburne. Death to 2020 revolves around the miserable year through the lens of Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones.
However, through the reviews received so far, the movie has not been up to the mark. The Telegraph described the venture as “disappointing” and gave it a two-star review. The review said, “You expect greatness from Brooker, but the jokes here are as predictable as the targets of the jokes, only occasionally rising above the quality of this year’s dreadful Spitting Image reboot. At least that had funny puppets.”
It also described, “The problem is that most of the jokes – and observations – here, we’ve all already made, lazily, on social media, time and time again. Death to 2020 tramps over the ground we are at best wearily familiar with, at worst utterly sick of.”
While The Independent said that it is hard to know what happened in the movie. They further shared, “Clearly there’s money behind Death to 2020, given its provenance and the caliber of the contributors. Between Black Mirror and the Wipes – to say nothing of Brooker’s previous career as a critic of acid brilliance – its creators are too good at the TV not to know that this is substandard.”
“Death to 2020 is a mess and you’ll be glad when it’s over”
The medium added that it is a televisual cash-in-hand plastering job for the bosses at Netflix. They said, “Was there meddling from above about its tone and direction? Was there not enough time to apply the usual quality control? Whatever the answer, Death to 2020 is a mess and you’ll be glad when it’s over. In that sense, at least, it’s appropriate to its subject.”
Meanwhile, the Netflix special scored three-and-a-half stars by Metro. They described it as an extended SNL sketch that did not have as many funny moments as they’d hoped. The review also expressed the disappointment of not having ‘oh damn’ moments as they get from Black Mirror.
Metro further adds, “It’s not bad, but it is what it is. It’s a recap with some characters going ‘can you believe that?’ And seeing as we’ve all lived through it this year, that’s not quite enough.”
Meanwhile, finding something to celebrate, The AV Club wrote: “Some of the character bits work better than others. Having Jackson serve as a reliable voice of sanity is a smart touch, and Fishburne’s narration delivers straight reporting and one-liners in the same confident, straight-forward tone, making some jokes land better than they might have otherwise.
“Ullman’s Queen feels like the sort of thing she could do in her sleep, but then, that’s true of just about everyone, and there’s something comforting in knowing where almost all of this is going before it happens. And there are moments here or there that lean into an idea enough to push it into the necessary levels of absurdity.”
Critics Compare It To Trump
While The Evening Standard said: “Mostly it made you realize just how much you didn’t want to remember. Yes, it’s important to be reminded just how terrible the footage of George Floyd’s last minutes is. And some of this year has seemed like such a weird dream, and we’re all so sick of it, that perhaps we should just check in to remind ourselves why we’re still at sodding home, and need to stay there.
“But honestly, 45 minutes of this would have been quite enough. Like the year it reflected on, Death to 2020 outstayed its welcome.”
The Hollywood Reporter went on: “It’s astonishing how lazy everything is, from the predictable insulting of various high-profile figures (“Presidential and experimental pig-man Donald Trump,” “Prehistoric concierge Joe Biden”) to various familiar moments that surely have been chewed over, digested and pooped out countless times already.
They also gave an example and said it was like someone angrily mocking Trump for that time that he suggested drinking bleach, might cure the coronavirus. The portal said it feels like that but more of it.
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