An Inconvenient Truth
by Oliver St John
It has been said that Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" was the movie that elevated the "agit-doc" to the ever-widening pantheon of high-drawing movie genres. This may indeed be so, but Moore's efforts have been largely concentrated to the United States. With "An Inconvenient Truth", former Vice-President Al Gore has taken the agit-doc global.
Upon entering the theater, I remarked to my wife that it is all too common to spend a couple of hours watching the world be destroyed while we comfortably sit and eat popcorn, but when the movie is non-fictional, it was a much more serious matter.
Gore has travelled the world in recent years, spreading his message about global warming and the dangers it poses. His ever-expanding PowerPoint presentation, used to educate audiences about the impending crisis, is the main thrust of this movie, combining heart-breaking images with alarming statistics.
The movie does not "dumb down" the science behind global warming, though it does also illustrate it with a number of sarcastic cartoons typical of Gore's wry sense of humor. It also uses solid, peer-reviewed science to refute the media assertions that global warming is "only a theory" or not directly attributable to human actions.
All in all, the movie makes a very solid, very inspirational case for the need to curb our ecological wantonness and begin to take better care of the Earth. There is a moment of vanity on Gore's part with a brief video-montage pertaining to the 2000 election and the resulting recount for the state of Florida, and the movie would not lack for coherence without this particular segment, but it can perhaps be forgiven in light of the underlying message: that the current administration is unwilling to make sacrifices to meet environmental standards being set by other countries across the world.
Gore ends the movie with a final exhortation to do what we can to help save the planet. A number of suggestions are featured in the closing credits to help us all get started.
We are all superheroes. We all have it inside us to save the world. I strongly urge you to see this movie and find out how you too can play a part.