An Inconvenient Truth

Let me state, up front, I have never been a fan of former Vice President Al Gore. He was a right of center Democrat who worked in an administration whose environmental record was considered, by most ecological groups, worse than the two Republican administrations that preceded his, and held that office at a time when the earliest stages of global warming, which he now decries, were first becoming known. As the second most visible politician in the country, did he sound the alarums then? Well, no. He wrote a book or two, but did nothing of any real consequence with the power he had. However, his Johnny Come lately status as an environmentalist, which led to his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as an Oscar for the 94 minute 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has nothing to do why it's a bad film. That's due solely to the film's director Davis Guggenheim, most noted as a network television director.... The film is basically two thirds of Gore preaching to the public about global warming by giving a slide show with some neat graphics. Again, the vast majority of what he states is incontrovertible, and the few areas where he exaggerates are minor disagreements between the scientific community where he chooses the worst scenario for dramatic effect. This is forgivable on Gore's part, and even the filmmaker's. It is also quite effective. But, where the film tanks, and also goes way beyond any reasonable standard for calling itself a documentary, is in the interspersed other third of the film, where we get the fetishistic close-ups of Gore as saint aborning, and in the hamhanded voiceovers. Putting aside the fact that the writing of the voiceovers is cringe-inducing (see above), Guggenheim could have at least put on a patina of objectivity by having the voiceovers done by someone else- perhaps another Left Winger like Tim Robbins. Instead, we are left with the unseemly deification of Al Gore....by Al Gore!
Even worse we get a parade of Oprah Winfrey-level sob stories about how tough a life Al Gore has- being born with a silver spoon, political power, and the disappointment of being out-scioned by George W. Bush for the Presidency. There are some genuine bad things that the film inexplicably digresses to, such as his sister's death from lung cancer and his son's near-fatal car crash. So? I mean, what is the point of the film- to act as a documentary about the global warming crisis, or about Al Gore's `indomitable courage'? Such courage which propels him to `walk alone' in airports- as if he's just a `regular person.' Or to spend hours on his laptop computer monkeying with graphs. Ooh, he's deep. Yup. Yes he is. Yessirreebob! But, if Guggenheim could only stop with the up the nostrils viewpoint so many of his shots have. I mean, even if Al Gore is the greatest man in the history of our species, do we really need to be able to count his nose hairs?....Overall, An Inconvenient Truth has important ideas, but is a bad film precisely because those ideas are made secondary to the ego of Al Gore. That is not Gore's fault, but Guggenheim's, yet is precisely why An Inconvenient Truth is a bad film, and not even remotely a `documentary.'

Was a very interesting movie. Bought it because my little brother was doing his senior project on global warming. He loved the movie

What this documentary DOESN'T tell you is that all of the big concerns that Mr. Gore uses to frighten his viewers occur *naturally*. See Global Warming: A Scientific and Biblical Expose' of Climate Change.

We watched this in school for science class, our whole class stunned by it. Not only is it entertaining, but factual. We should have voted Al Gore for the president -_-

All I can say is...wow. After being put to sleep the first time I tried to watch it, I watched it again and can now conclude that this DVD is complete and utter BS. Al Gore takes global warming to a whole new level, one that is full of inaccuracy, random correlations, and strategically placed mush for sentimental effect. How anyone could say this is an accurate, convincing portrayal of global warming boggles my mind, because all I see is plenty of junk science. Enough said.