STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A decade on from his award winning, socially impacting environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth was released, former presidential candidate Al Gore has chosen to make a follow up film, further highlighting the plight of worldwide climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. He shows how the irresponsibility of certain, advanced nations is having a detrimental impact on the lives of those in smaller, more disadvantaged nations, and even closer to home, and re-ignites his worldwide call for change and accountability, as President Donald Trump removes America from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Ten years is a perfect time for evaluation, if you are trying to achieve something. When a period of time has advanced to double digits, it's time to look back and observe what progress has been made, and what significant changes for the better have occurred that something you were so passionate about and devoted yourself to promoting have resulted in. It would seem, from Truth to Power's existence, that Al Gore was not sufficiently impressed with what had changed in the ten years since the predecessor to this film was released, and so he has once again made a documentary about his worldwide efforts for change.

This time around, it's a far less personal account, with Gore having already divulged his family background and motivations for being so powered up about the environment in the last film, and so we delve headfirst in with him this time around, as he travels to Paris to show support from the USA for the climate cause, and gets caught up in the tragic terror attacks toward the end of the year, as well as to one of the one of the world's biggest polluters, India, to try and get them to find alternatives to coal burning. His sincerity towards the cause is never in doubt, obviously not something he just does to grab votes by exploiting a popular cause, and at times the passion cracks through his voice, as he propels his crusade.

In a time when international terror (not unwisely) seems to be at the top of everyone's concerns, the dour voiced Gore has powered up that slovenly drawl of his once again to make sure we don't forget about a crisis that has every bit as much catastrophic potential. ****

Greetings again from the darkness. Eleven years ago, former Vice President Al Gore teamed up with filmmaker Davis Guggenheim to deliver a significant and startling wake-up call in the form of the documentary AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Not only was this the first introduction to the science of "global warming" for many, it also won an Oscar for Mr. Guggenheim and contributed to Mr. Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Co-directors Bonni Cohen (THE RAPE OF EUROPA) and Jon Shenk (LOST BOYS OF SUDAN) seem conflicted on the purpose of this sequel. Is this a frightening eye-opener on the climate-related changes over this past decade, or is it an attempt to return the spotlight to a faded rock star? The film provides evidence of both.

The film kicks off with a reminder of how powerful the original documentary was and how it started an avalanche of deniers … even re-playing Glenn Beck's comparison of Al Gore to Joseph Goebbels as being weak sources of truth. Mr. Gore is on screen almost the entire run time. He is a self-described "recovering politician", yet we see him acting very much like an esteemed politician: presenting on stage, shaking hands with the adoring crowds, posing for selfies, giving speeches, appearing on talk shows, and coming across as a highly-polished public figure reciting well-rehearsed lines.

As we would expect, the film is at its best when it focuses not on the celebrity and commitment of Mr. Gore, but rather on the statistics and documentation of these earth-changing developments. Some of the featured videos are surreal: the 2016 Greenland glaciers "exploding" due to warm temperatures, the flooded streets of Miami Beach from rising tides, and the aftermath of the Philippines typhoon are particularly impactful. There is even a connection made between the severe drought and the Syrian Civil War in creating an especially inhumane living environment. A Gore trip to Georgetown, Texas and his visit with its Republican mayor is effective in making the point that political platforms should have no bearing on our doing the right things for our planet. There simply aren't enough of these moments.

A central focal point is the 2015 UN Climate Conference in Paris, and cameras are rolling when terrorism causes fear for the safety of 150 heads of state, and necessitates a delay in the proceedings. We are privy to some of the behind-the-scenes negotiations that include Solar City agreeing to "gift" technology to India in an attempt to have that country join the accord and reduce from 400 the number of planned new coal plants. Of course as we now know, the historic Paris Climate Accord has since been compromised with the pull out of the United States after the recent election.

Is the purpose of the film to keep climate change believers motivated, or are the filmmakers (and Gore) attempting to educate those who might still be won over? With so much attention to Mr. Gore's ongoing efforts (and an attempt to solidify his legacy),it often plays like a pep talk rather than a fact-based documentary.

There is no questioning the man's passion, though his screen presence over two hours is hampered by his reserved manner. He states clearly that he is "not confused about what the right thing to do is", and even compares his mission to the Civil Rights movement. Gore labels the lack of global process as a "personal failure on my part", while simultaneously claiming the Democracy crisis has affected the attention given to the climate crisis. His frequent proclamations that "we are close" seem to be in conflict with the many setbacks. Are we close? The film seems to offer little proof.

2006 brought Al Gore's brilliant and scary documentary, An Inconvenient Truth blasting into cinemas and soon after, classrooms. With its raw exposure to a dangerous and (until then) quiet killer, Gore's position in the world went from being the biggest contested loser in American politics (until Hillary Clinton in 2016) to being a warrior for the earth. It was an amazing documentary and ranks in my top ten of all time. However, when I saw this sequel...things changed. My thoughts on climate change are cemented, it is real and anyone who argues that it's not is ill informed or just can't face facts. But one thing that is as much of a fact as climate change is how terrible a documentary and sequel this film is.

Rehashing points made in 2006 and coupling it with some pretty far fetched predictions for the future make this film more frustrating than informative. What Gore did in 2006 was he made an accessible documentary about a crisis and used it to try to create a better and more informed world. Here, Gore seems infatuated with himself and some of the film ends up feeling more about him than climate change. Ten years since his first attempt, one could feel that he could have come to the table with something more substantial than the same graphs spun differently and the same dialog written with a bit more finesse.

Overall, I feel the message is still here. Climate change is a big problem that the world faces every day and it is up to us to stop it. But it is up to Al Gore to make sure that when he wants to do a documentary, that his info can sustain a feature length film. Instead of a little bit of new information and showing how much damage we've done in 10 years, the documentary should have been much better. I wanted more interviews with people affected by the changes, I wanted more interviews with politicians on both sides. To be honest, there's more I wanted out of this film than was delivered. That, to me, represents a disappointing film. Which is so hard for me to take considering An Inconvenient Truth is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. It is up there with Super Size Me, The Thin Blue Line, and My Brother's Keeper for me. To see this and feel as cheated as I do, it is any wonder why I don't give this a 1 on my sheer disappointment alone. But, I have to give the film credit for at least being entertaining and informative, even if much of the information is already 10 years old.