☆☆½
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is going to convince exactly zero climate-change deniers that their position is wrong, and it may convince a few people that they should become evangelists for former Vice President Al Gore's impassioned endeavors, but first and foremost, An Inconvenient Sequel should be a good movie, and the problem is it's not.
Because it's not particularly good, An Inconvenient Sequel will be even more vulnerable to attacks from the right than it would have if it had been as incendiary, bold and committed as An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning film from 2006 that became a flashpoint for awareness of global warming.
The response to An Inconvenient Truth was both alarming and sadly telling -- rather than acknowledge the detailed and convincing scientific evidence Gore presented in his elaborate PowerPoint presentation, opponents began denying the facts, leading us, well, to where we are now in the world: If you don't like the information you're getting, just flat-out deny it. The success of An Inconvenient Truth, as well as more liberal-leaning documentaries from filmmakers like Michael Moore, resulted in a slew of cinematic responses, especially from arch-conservative Dinesh D'Souza, which took opinions and half-truths and distorted them into the form and shape of a "documentary."
So, the real challenge for An Inconvenient Sequel is to find a way to offset those quasi-documentaries and present compelling information in a way that is so incontrovertible that it can't be denied, while acknowledging the rise of conservative opinion-oriented commentaries that are presented as facts. If An Inconvenient Truth was a small stepping stone on the way to our facts-versus-"facts" society, how would its sequel remark upon the role it played?
The answer is: It doesn't -- and it fails, sometimes stupendously, in the challenge to create a new, less partisan view of climate change, to win over the skeptics and showcase the way the earth has been changing in the last decade alone.
An Inconvenient Sequel certainly does present chilling, often downright depressing, evidence. The scientific data along with the eyewitness video of weather-based calamities combine to sobering effect. If the film focused on those elements, it would be a winner, a worthy follow-up to the eye-opening original.
Instead, An Inconvenient Sequel ends up being near-hagiography of Al Gore. This is a movie made for people who see Gore as an innocent victim whose still-stunning loss of the presidency is something they'll never quite get over, who still believe we should have had eight years of President Gore and are still bitter about it. An Inconvenient Sequel commits the tactical error of not making climate change the subject but of making Al Gore the subject.
In one galvanizing sequence, Gore visits Miami and sees the city overwhelmed by water that local politicians admit has only one source: sea-level rise. He wades around in rubber rain boots while city officials express understandable shock at how quickly the predictions from the first film have come true. But instead of adding to our understanding of the problem, the cause and the solution, An Inconvenient Sequel spends the next 10 minutes getting ready for a presentation, being interviewed by media, and proving how indefatigable he is.
I've no doubt that Al Gore is committed. I've little doubt he is sincere that he does not want to be a politician anymore --though the movie more than hints that maybe he's still got it in him. And in its most effective moments, An Inconvenient Sequel left me with little doubt about the benefits of solar energy. (Though highly ineffective as a movie, An Inconvenient Sequel is a tremendous, and shameless, infomercial for Solar City.)
But it also left me thinking that it was all a huge wasted opportunity. While it's interesting, and illuminating, to learn the details of the machinations behind the Paris accord, it's disconcerting that a movie theoretically 10 years in the making misses its chance to comment on climate-change deniers. The original film was filled with scientific evidence, but this film makes no effort at all to attack the pseudo-science of skeptics.
More than a few times in An Inconvenient Sequel, Gore expresses regret that despite his efforts there is still a great deal of opposition, that despite the facts there are too many people who want to believe opinion. Yet, An Inconvenient Sequel does far too little to undermine the deniers, much less to convert them to his way of thinking. An Inconvenient Sequel is made for those who already believe. That's a shame.
Viewed Aug. 5, 2017 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
1915
Because it's not particularly good, An Inconvenient Sequel will be even more vulnerable to attacks from the right than it would have if it had been as incendiary, bold and committed as An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning film from 2006 that became a flashpoint for awareness of global warming.
The response to An Inconvenient Truth was both alarming and sadly telling -- rather than acknowledge the detailed and convincing scientific evidence Gore presented in his elaborate PowerPoint presentation, opponents began denying the facts, leading us, well, to where we are now in the world: If you don't like the information you're getting, just flat-out deny it. The success of An Inconvenient Truth, as well as more liberal-leaning documentaries from filmmakers like Michael Moore, resulted in a slew of cinematic responses, especially from arch-conservative Dinesh D'Souza, which took opinions and half-truths and distorted them into the form and shape of a "documentary."
So, the real challenge for An Inconvenient Sequel is to find a way to offset those quasi-documentaries and present compelling information in a way that is so incontrovertible that it can't be denied, while acknowledging the rise of conservative opinion-oriented commentaries that are presented as facts. If An Inconvenient Truth was a small stepping stone on the way to our facts-versus-"facts" society, how would its sequel remark upon the role it played?
The answer is: It doesn't -- and it fails, sometimes stupendously, in the challenge to create a new, less partisan view of climate change, to win over the skeptics and showcase the way the earth has been changing in the last decade alone.
An Inconvenient Sequel certainly does present chilling, often downright depressing, evidence. The scientific data along with the eyewitness video of weather-based calamities combine to sobering effect. If the film focused on those elements, it would be a winner, a worthy follow-up to the eye-opening original.
Instead, An Inconvenient Sequel ends up being near-hagiography of Al Gore. This is a movie made for people who see Gore as an innocent victim whose still-stunning loss of the presidency is something they'll never quite get over, who still believe we should have had eight years of President Gore and are still bitter about it. An Inconvenient Sequel commits the tactical error of not making climate change the subject but of making Al Gore the subject.
In one galvanizing sequence, Gore visits Miami and sees the city overwhelmed by water that local politicians admit has only one source: sea-level rise. He wades around in rubber rain boots while city officials express understandable shock at how quickly the predictions from the first film have come true. But instead of adding to our understanding of the problem, the cause and the solution, An Inconvenient Sequel spends the next 10 minutes getting ready for a presentation, being interviewed by media, and proving how indefatigable he is.
I've no doubt that Al Gore is committed. I've little doubt he is sincere that he does not want to be a politician anymore --though the movie more than hints that maybe he's still got it in him. And in its most effective moments, An Inconvenient Sequel left me with little doubt about the benefits of solar energy. (Though highly ineffective as a movie, An Inconvenient Sequel is a tremendous, and shameless, infomercial for Solar City.)
But it also left me thinking that it was all a huge wasted opportunity. While it's interesting, and illuminating, to learn the details of the machinations behind the Paris accord, it's disconcerting that a movie theoretically 10 years in the making misses its chance to comment on climate-change deniers. The original film was filled with scientific evidence, but this film makes no effort at all to attack the pseudo-science of skeptics.
More than a few times in An Inconvenient Sequel, Gore expresses regret that despite his efforts there is still a great deal of opposition, that despite the facts there are too many people who want to believe opinion. Yet, An Inconvenient Sequel does far too little to undermine the deniers, much less to convert them to his way of thinking. An Inconvenient Sequel is made for those who already believe. That's a shame.
Viewed Aug. 5, 2017 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
1915
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