As far as Alexander Payne satires go, which are generally fairly pointed, Downsizing is as dull as he's ever been. All of the film's lackluster stems form the half-baked and fairly directionless screenplay full of soft and doughy concepts that are never given an opportunity to truly rise. Payne never chooses a side to stand on concerning the environmental issues central to the film, which would've likely worked to the film's benefit. Instead, it tries to straddle this odd bipartisan line; on one hand, it's saying that we should be more globally conscious, and on the other, it's saying that the planet is already too far gone and any efforts to mend it are essentially fruitless. It tries to come off as a think-piece, but its central message (if it even has one) becomes increasingly more and more unclear as the film meanders on.

The film may've worked better as an ensemble film, but the known names it manages to cram in (like Kirsten Wiig, Jason Sedeikis, Laura Dern, Neil Patrick Harris, and James Van Der Beek) aren't around for much more than a bat of an eye. Narratively, we're stuck with Matt Damon's vanilla "everyman" character, who never manages to be anything more than boring, for the entirety of the film. Luckily, Christoph Waltz and Udo Kier have much bigger roles than the rest of the cameo performers, and they really help to give the film some (not much) redeeming quality.