Repeat Bidness: An Inconvenient Truth

*This post is on the Wrath of McCoy! auto-pilot.*

An Inconvenient Truth

Release: 05.24.06
DVD Release: 11.21.06
Rated PG

1 hour, 40 minutes

Full Price ($$$$) <
> Matinee ($$$)


In Superman Returns Lex Luthor wants to create a new land mass in the Atlantic Ocean because real estate means money and power. The problem with creating the new land mass is that it would effectively destroy Metropolis with flooding and tidal waves. Luckily for the world, Superman is there to fly in and save the day. It’s a great story line and a great movie that you should check out if you haven’t already. But you may ask yourself, why am I talking about Superman Returns in a review for An Inconvenient Truth? Because the premise is strikingly similar and not as fictional as you think. Researchers have been touting the environmental effects of global warming for decades. Global warming is reported to attribute to increased melting of glaciers and ice caps on countries such as Greenland. As the temperature rises, the ice melts and much of the planet’s frozen lands will be uncovered and readied for development. Of course, all that water will flood millions of miles of existing land and one thing’s for certain; we have no Superman to stop it.

Luckily, we have former Vice President Al Gore, and though he isn’t donning any tights or cape, he has taken to the skies to travel and educate the world about the impacts of global warming in the hopes that citizens will join together to make a global change. Director Davis Guggenheim (TV: Deadwood) presents Gore’s global journey in a documentary designed to take the message to audiences beyond the lecture hall. The documentary highlights Gore’s entire presentation, complete with visual aids and witticisms. Guggenheim does depart intermittently from the engaging presentation to delve into the orator’s history. The departures review Gore’s youth in Tennessee and Washington, D.C., his time as a senator, his son’s near-death experience, and his time as a presidential candidate, all of which help to depict Gore as a concerned individual who is reaching out to his fellow man rather than a politician or salesman with a ulterior purpose. While it is true that Gore is a politician and everyone has an agenda, the documentary successfully utilizes these segues to present the issue of global warming as pertinent to everyone.

Though it is a documentary, specifically a documentary centered on a presentation, it is engaging and at times amusing despite the weighty subject. Gore’s use of satellite imagery and historical photos help put the problem into an easily understandable perspective. For folks who may need more convincing, the documentary discusses specific research that supports the effect global warming is having on the planet. For audiences who are well-versed in global warming it is probably a little too simplified and may be a bit dull, but the average concerned individual should receive a solid foundation for understanding this issue.

Dirty Undies
Gore gets a bit passionate but not quite worked up enough to generate anything worthy of Dirty Undies status.

The Money Shot
The popular media will say that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that global warming is the cause of our increasingly hot summers. This documentary gives you the information to help you decide for yourself. Whether you come out a believer or not, going to see this film will, at the very least, spare you from the record heat wave we’re experiencing for a couple hours.