Customer Reviews

An Inconvenient Truth

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

"An inconvenient truth", directed by Davis Guggenheim, allows you to watch a lecture about global climate change that Al Gore has given many times, in different parts of the world. Strangely enough, it is not boring, and even though the subject is somewhat complicated, Gore manages to make it accessible to the spectator.

Al Gore is entertaining and patient with his audience, saying that "It is just human nature to take time to connect the dots. I know that. But I also know that there can be a day of reckoning when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly". According to him, climate change and how we react to it is ultimately not a political issue so much as a moral issue. Once you are aware of what is happening, and realize that climate change is not just a "theory", you will have to act, because there is just no other option. Either you are part of the problem, or one of those trying to find a solution.

I strongly believe that this dvd should be seen by everybody, because it tackles a difficult subject that concerns us all, that is climate change and the way in which it is affecting our planet. Disregarding your political ideas or the place where you live, there are some disturbing facts that you won't be able to deny any longer, even if they lead to an inconvenient truth.

In the last few minutes of this movie, Al Gore says that he set himself a goal, to try to communicate clearly what he has learnt about global climate change. Congrats on a well-done job, Mr. Gore! And thanks...

Belen Alcat

An Inconvenient Truth is something everybody should see, no matter what your beliefs are about it. I think it will open your mind to such a disasterous, incomprehendable outline of the years ahead of us--that is, if nothing is done about it.

Buy it, rent it, burn it, download it, whatever--just see it. I give it a two thumbs up in being very educational and very, very important.

The only thing I didn't like about the movie was it seemed Al Gore was telling his own life story a little too much. But please, please don't let that deter you away from seeing the movie. Trust me, Al Gore's life is easy to forget about while watching the movie. Just every once in a while, there is something about him that doesn't need to be there.

All in all, I give the movie a 5 out of 5 for backing up all the environmentalists, scientists, politicians and other concerned citizens throughout the world. It offers a very convincing and strategic outlook on global warming.

Al Gore has made a documentary here that's as urgent as it is reasonable, as clear and accessible as it is engaging. Some of the myths about global warming (the idea that scientists are in disagreement about it) are struck down, and the clarity here is wonderful, though I hope not too late. Some of the demonstrations make it clear just how many people would be dislocated by global warming, and just how uninhabitable the world will be, including one chilling scene that shows how much land, currently populated by millions, will be underwater, if even portions of Greenland and the Antarctic (already showing tremendous signs of stress) were to melt. This includes parts of Manhattan and the world trade centre memorial site.

He stresses that there's hope, in terms of taking on the climate crisis, but we must act now, and the DVD has a half-hour update with Gore, made since the theatrical release of the film. It's true that Gore talks about his own personal history a little, but I simply saw it as a way to break up the film so that he isn't throwing statistics at the viewer the whole time.

Having seen it in the theatre, I still plan to buy a copy just to loan around to my friends, and another one to put in the office for people to sign out. Film critic Roger Ebert said in decades of reviewing he's never written these words before, but "You owe it to yourself to see this film."

While this film was impressive when I first saw it, after being exposed to some of its many errors, I have to discarded it as flawed. I have since thrown it away. The one star is for presentation.

Al Gore and global warming go hand in hand because of this movie. It is probably one of the most well known movies of the year and even more so because of it's recent Oscar win in the Best Documentary Category. It has been one of the most influential factors in bringing greenhouse gases to the front of the public agenda.

After watching it do I think that it's all that it's cracked up to be? Yes ultimately it is very good. It's basic plot is following Gore's very powerful power point presentation he's been giving all over the world. It's simple but it works at getting the basic message across about global warming. He routinely employs the use of humor and shocking statistics (and some of the statistics are very scary) to drive home the message that we are facing a big problem. I can see why he was supposed to be the next president of the United States.

Why the 4 star rating? It seems his political prowess spills over a little too much in the movie. In between the great scenes where he is explaining the rising of oceans, the melting of icecaps, and the lunacy of skepticism, he puts these cut scenes in with him talking about his farm or his wife. In these detours he tries to connect the fight against global warming on a personal level.

There's lots of shots of him looking depressed and alone and the whole personal thing comes off as all a little self promotional. He paints himself as some lonely tragic hero and the ultimate promotion sequence is when he starts talking about his election loss (which has no relation to the movie whatsoever). It's almost as if it's a campaign video at some parts.

Nevertheless, An Inconvenient Truth is a must watch movie (don't let my four star rating turn you off), but be prepared to swallow a little dose of Gore's narcissism along the way.

This movie is very educational. Al Gore used his ex political fame to promote this documentary. He used his fame to alarm us about very important issue "Global Warming".

This documentary makes strong statement of facts about the deteriorating condition of our planet. In this movie he used clear and alarming examples such Hurricane Katrina, the melting of ice in the North Pole and on the tops of the mountains such as Kilimanjaro, to show us the changes on the planet.

He explained the history behind Global Warming as well what this means to the planet and what cause it.

With all the personal distraction in this movie, his message was wide and clear:

The planet is being destroyed by the pollution and the massive consumption of human beings.

We need to act now and work together to save our planet.

Al Gore explained in details where we were in the previous 50 years and where we will be in the next 50 years.

He provided shocking figures of how bad and how fast the planet is deteriorating.

Towards the end of his documentary he provided us with a glimpse of hope.

Although we have not done much to save this planet, especially in North America, but it is never too late. If we worked together, even with simple things in our everyday's life, we will reverse some of the damage.

It was very alarming and educational documentary, we need to wake up and admit we have a problem.

I enjoyed watching this documentary. Al Gore was convincing with a light sense of humor.

If you have time to watch a movie, make it An Inconvenient Truth. It is very educational.

"Even if I do something like they say, the world won't change." says our little 13 years old.

"Oh yeah? It might be true if a 100 people thought that way.
But what if the same 100 people decided to do something about it?"

He goes "okay." :)

After showing the devastating facts, this movie leaves us with a big hope and concrete & practical ideas for the solution.

Watch it. Discuss it with every "little" person you love on this gorgeous blue pixel.

It is truly sad that so many people bought into Gore's version of climate warming. Come on people - use your brains and do a little research - get both sides of the story before sending Gore any more of your hard earned money. He got the story wrong and only told us a small part of it - left out the Medievil warm period (oops) - left out the fact that CO2 in the GEOLOGIC Record (not the last 60 years - but the last 3.2 billion years) has been much higher than it is today - and we weren't around to have caused those peaks. He lied by telling only a select piece of the story and then ignored arguments of those who tried to set him right by invoking character assassination.

Always remember that when someone like Gore isn't amenable to debating a point but starts invoking character assassination like calling credible scientists names like "pawns of big oil", deniers, etc, etc, etc - you know he is in trouble or just plain out of his league

One star only because I had to - minus 100 if I could have

If I were a highschool teacher, I'd show this to every one of my classes, even if I was teaching Gym.

Please see this. It's all happening right now, that's the amazing thing. It's shocking, and enlightening, and empowering.

Other vital DVDs: The Corporation, Who Killed The Electric Car?,

BBC's The Power of Nightmares (don't know if it's on DVD)

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"Out of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals about global warming, there was no disagreement [that it is occurring]. Zero."

The above is just one of the facts you will learn from viewing this Academy Award-winning, riveting, easy-to-understand, and surprisingly non-boring documentary about climate change, specifically global warming. It features former U.S. vice-president Al Gore standing on a stage before a large screen lecturing to an audience.

Generally, Gore reviews:

(1) the scientific evidence for global warming (he has access to many scientists)
(2) the politics of global warming
(3) the economics of global warming
(4) its consequences (those happening now and those that are predicted)

There seems to be some confusion as to what exactly the contents of this film entails. To alleviate this problem, I will give the title of each scene below and where I feel is necessary, a comment in parenthesis:

(1) The river (this is one item in an introductory sequence)
(2) Continental drift (at one time major land masses were together but slowly drifted apart)
(3) Basic science of global warming ("traditional explanation")
(4) Global warming cartoon ("better explanation")
(5) Professor Revelle (first person who proposed to measure carbon dioxide--a major culprit causing global warming-- concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere. Gore attended classes given by Revelle)
(6) Carbon Dioxide measures since 1958
(7) Glaciers receding (around the world)
(8) Ice cores (can be used to measure carbon dioxide concentrations for a particular year in the past)
(9) Carbon dioxide levels back 650 thousand years
(10) *Albert's accident (Gore's son)
(11) Rising temperatures
(12) Hurricanes (as well as tornadoes and typhoons)
(13) *2000 election (Gore versus Bush)
(14) Precipitation and Evaporation (these are increasing and relocating due to global warming)
(15) *The Gore farm
(16) The Arctic (predictor of global warming)
(17) The ocean conveyer (responsible for heat transfer)
(18) *Resistance to change (humans find it difficult to change their ways)
(19) Troubling signs (of global warming)
(20) Antarctica (another predictor of global warming)
(21) Sea-level rise
(22) *China (contrary to what you may hear, China is doing its part to curb global warming)
(23) (Human) population explosion (puts pressure on Earth's resources)
(24) Old habits + new technology (= dramatically altered consequences)
(25) *Working tobacco
(26) Is there (really) a controversy (with regard to global warming)? (Gore talks about skeptics who want to "reposition global warming as a debate")
(27) Science fraud (just like that which perpetuated the myth that smoking cigarettes does not cause lung cancer)
(28) Balancing the economy and environment (or money versus the Earth)
(29) *City by city (Gore goes to cities around the world with his message)
(30) The solutions are in our hands (to solve the problem of global warming)
(31) Are we (humans) capable of doing great (environmental) things?
(32) Our only home (the planet we call------EARTH)
(*These items are personal in nature.)

Gore is an engaging person thus making this documentary (on a serious subject) a treat to watch. The pictures, graphs, animation, etc. that appear on the screen behind Gore are well done and illustrate exquisitely each point he's making.

The accompanying book of the same title is more detailed than the documentary. The book reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in July 2006.

The film's distributor, "Paramount Classics," is donating 5% of the box office receipts and Gore is donating all his proceeds from this film to "The Alliance for Climate Protection." Also, this was the third highest documentary at the U.S. box office (at the time this review was written).

Finally, the DVD (the one released in 2006) is perfect in picture and sound quality. It has many interesting extras.

In conclusion, I want to leave you with the words of the late, great Dr. Carl Sagan that I feel summarize Al Gore's fascinating documentary:

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. [To see that the Earth is truly a "speck," refer to the picture of the Earth as seen from about 3.5 billion miles by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Gore includes this astonishing picture both in this documentary and his book.] In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world we know so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which [the human] species could migrate. Visit yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we must make our stand."

(2006; 1 hr, 35 min; wide screen; 32 scenes)

<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>

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