Al Gore, Nobel Laureate, Grammy Winner and Oscar Winner. Well, kind of. The man who served as Vice President of the United States for two terms under Bill Clinton, and who narrowly (and controversially) lost his bid to succeed Clinton as President in 2000, helped win an Oscar for his one major post-politics endeavor. Environmentalism in general and climate change specifically had been important causes to Gore, as a member of the House of Representatives, Senator, Vice President, Democrat nominee for President and then after leaving politics. During what would have been his second term as President (had he beaten George W. Bush and then gotten re-elected), Gore's environmental activism was the focus of the film "An Inconvenient Truth" which won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for filmmaker David Guggenheim (and for Melissa Etheridge, whose "I Need to Wake Up" won for Best Original Song).
The film wasn't much more than a glorified PowerPoint presentation, about which Gore lectured on stage. Yet, it made quite an impact on public opinion around the world. (According to Wikipedia, "In a July 2007 47-country Internet survey conducted by The Nielsen Company and Oxford University, 66% of those respondents who said they had seen An Inconvenient Truth stated that it had 'changed their mind' about global warming and 89% said it had made them more aware of the problem. Three out of four (74%) said they had changed some of their habits because of seeing the film.") Gore's efforts also led to him winning the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (along with the International Panel on Climate Change) and his audio rendition of his follow-up book earned him a 2009 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. And Gore let none of the publicity or momentum generated by these accomplishments go to waste as we see in the follow-up documentary feature film "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" (PG, 1:38).
Gore's slide show (which he constantly updates) plays a prominent role in this sequel, but we see him journey much further than simply stage left and stage right. Interspersed with explanations of climate change data and videos from the decade between the original film to the sequel (often presented to trainees who have signed up to join him in the cause), Gore travels to places where the results of global warming are evident (even going to central Greenland) and he goes to talk to the powers-that-be in other countries (including India) to get a better understanding of the issues they face in "going green".
All this talk and travel is heading somewhere specific – to the landmark 2015 Climate Conference in Paris. We see Gore politicking and trying to get some major world powers on board. His efforts are temporarily thrown off track by the more immediate concern of a large-scale terrorist attack in the city. That tragedy not only affects preparations for the conference, but it also plays into Gore's goals in an indirect way. And the hope that Gore exhibits going into the conference isn't the only positivity in this film. Instead of simply raising the alarm about the rapidly advancing problem of climate change, he has good news to share regarding the progress that's been made since 2006 and real hope for the future.
"An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" is an important and well- made documentary, but occasionally strays off its chosen path. It's important in the sense that it presents compelling evidence in support of man-made climate change and offers workable solutions – all of which should at least be discussed by the leaders of every industrialized nation and their citizens. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, there's no denying Al Gore's devotion to the cause or his passion in spreading the word. Directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk effectively make their film's case by following Gore around the world and mixing in short, significant moments from his lectures in such a way that they allow Gore's rhetoric and intensity to build to a crescendo by film's end. Additionally, by building towards the Paris conference, they establish something of a narrative thread and give clear focus to everything that comes before.
Unfortunately, the filmmakers also include elements that are irrelevant or unexplained and, therefore, unnecessarily distracting. For example, in almost every scene, Gore is wearing a small, light green metallic disc on his lapel or his collar, the significance of which is never explained or even referenced. More egregiously, at several points, the film references Gore's ill-fated presidential campaign and the controversy that surrounded the final vote count – without even attempting to establish a relationship between those events and the film's message. Maybe these references had a place in Gore's previous documentary (just six years after the election), but in 2017? Not so much. What's more, the filmmakers and Gore himself go out of their way to take none-too-subtle jabs at the Republican Party in general and President Trump in particular. The inclusion of personal political criticism is ill-advised and counterproductive to the film's goals. Still, in spite of the distractions, this doc deserves credit for furthering a very important conversation. "B"
The film wasn't much more than a glorified PowerPoint presentation, about which Gore lectured on stage. Yet, it made quite an impact on public opinion around the world. (According to Wikipedia, "In a July 2007 47-country Internet survey conducted by The Nielsen Company and Oxford University, 66% of those respondents who said they had seen An Inconvenient Truth stated that it had 'changed their mind' about global warming and 89% said it had made them more aware of the problem. Three out of four (74%) said they had changed some of their habits because of seeing the film.") Gore's efforts also led to him winning the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (along with the International Panel on Climate Change) and his audio rendition of his follow-up book earned him a 2009 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. And Gore let none of the publicity or momentum generated by these accomplishments go to waste as we see in the follow-up documentary feature film "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" (PG, 1:38).
Gore's slide show (which he constantly updates) plays a prominent role in this sequel, but we see him journey much further than simply stage left and stage right. Interspersed with explanations of climate change data and videos from the decade between the original film to the sequel (often presented to trainees who have signed up to join him in the cause), Gore travels to places where the results of global warming are evident (even going to central Greenland) and he goes to talk to the powers-that-be in other countries (including India) to get a better understanding of the issues they face in "going green".
All this talk and travel is heading somewhere specific – to the landmark 2015 Climate Conference in Paris. We see Gore politicking and trying to get some major world powers on board. His efforts are temporarily thrown off track by the more immediate concern of a large-scale terrorist attack in the city. That tragedy not only affects preparations for the conference, but it also plays into Gore's goals in an indirect way. And the hope that Gore exhibits going into the conference isn't the only positivity in this film. Instead of simply raising the alarm about the rapidly advancing problem of climate change, he has good news to share regarding the progress that's been made since 2006 and real hope for the future.
"An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" is an important and well- made documentary, but occasionally strays off its chosen path. It's important in the sense that it presents compelling evidence in support of man-made climate change and offers workable solutions – all of which should at least be discussed by the leaders of every industrialized nation and their citizens. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, there's no denying Al Gore's devotion to the cause or his passion in spreading the word. Directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk effectively make their film's case by following Gore around the world and mixing in short, significant moments from his lectures in such a way that they allow Gore's rhetoric and intensity to build to a crescendo by film's end. Additionally, by building towards the Paris conference, they establish something of a narrative thread and give clear focus to everything that comes before.
Unfortunately, the filmmakers also include elements that are irrelevant or unexplained and, therefore, unnecessarily distracting. For example, in almost every scene, Gore is wearing a small, light green metallic disc on his lapel or his collar, the significance of which is never explained or even referenced. More egregiously, at several points, the film references Gore's ill-fated presidential campaign and the controversy that surrounded the final vote count – without even attempting to establish a relationship between those events and the film's message. Maybe these references had a place in Gore's previous documentary (just six years after the election), but in 2017? Not so much. What's more, the filmmakers and Gore himself go out of their way to take none-too-subtle jabs at the Republican Party in general and President Trump in particular. The inclusion of personal political criticism is ill-advised and counterproductive to the film's goals. Still, in spite of the distractions, this doc deserves credit for furthering a very important conversation. "B"