Featuring
Al Gore as Chief Brody & Donald Trump as Mayor Vaughn. Directed
by Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk. (2017, 97 min).
Through
no fault of its own, a dark cloud hangs over An Inconvenient
Sequel, a follow-up to the
provocative and sobering documentary about Al Gore's commitment to
combating climate change.
Ten
years after An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is still traveling the world, spreading the word
with his call-to-action presentation. The consequences are still
dire; Gore presents some scary comparative statistics and includes
many recent examples of climate change's impact on the world
(including street flooding in Miami at the exact time he's speaking.
But
despite the ominous implications, An Inconvenient Sequel goes for a
more optimistic tone than its predecessor, offering examples of
positive change being implemented by various countries, corporations
and communities. This all leads up to the film's climax, the signing
of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement.
But
what a difference a year makes. Donald Trump infamously pulled the
United States out of the agreement before the film could even be
released, rendering its conclusion unintentionally ironic (the
filmmakers added this unfortunate coda late in the
production, further immortalizing Trump as a supreme jackass). What should have been a victory lap ends in crushing defeat (I suppose Al now knows how the Atlanta Falcons felt). The viewer might even feel the whole film is hopelessly redundant because nobody seems to be listening...in this country, anyway.
 |
| "Could all of you please stop shouting 'Freebird'?" |
If you're a climate change believer (which I am, by the way), you'll end up justifiably angry, though not particularly surprised by anything. If you
aren't - and always perceived Gore as a Chicken Little - this film
isn't likely to change your mind. Despite compelling information and
some disturbing natural disaster footage, it mostly preaches to the
converted, and aside from some angry soundbites from climate deniers, contradictory viewpoints are nearly absent. But that's
okay...deniers always have Fox News.
Ten
years on, An Inconvenient Sequel
doesn't quite have the impact of the first film, not in an age when even cold hard facts are apparently arguable. The debate over climate change has been as
normalized by the media as Trump's terrible tweets. An
Inconvenient Sequel is
interesting and Gore once-again comes across as earnest and dedicated, but while the film will reinforce what believers have been
saying all along, it ultimately doesn't provide anything new for
naysayers to chew on...or bitch about.
EXTRA
KIBBLES
FEATURETTES:
"Effecting Change: Speaking Truth to Power"; "Truth in
Ten: The Facts About Climate Change"
LYRIC
VIDEO: "Truth to Power" by OneRepublic
DIGITAL
COPY
KITTY CONSENSUS:
NOT BAD...BUT ULTIMATELY NOT NECESSARY
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