Earlier this evening I attended (and helped out with) a fundraiser for the Oakland County Democratic Party in Southfield, Michigan. The main event of the evening was a screening of An Inconvenient Truth at the AMC Star Southfield theater.
A few thoughts I have on the film (most have already been atricultated by other articles/reviews, but what the heck...)
There's a few "spoilers" below, but come on--it's a documentary; I don't think it's quite the same as revealing The Killer in a murder mystery or anything...still, consider yourself warned:
--As many have noted, if Gore had been half as personable and passionate about his beliefs in 2000, many events of the past 6 years would have been a bad movie script instead of our reality. Obviously, several years of perspective on his experience of coming thisclose to the Presidency, combined with not running for public office anymore, have allowed him the freedom of acting like his true self. No longer stifled by overcalculating advisors, and with no one's agenda to follow but his own, have been extremely empowering for Gore.
--The way that the film is edited is very clever; while the slideshow presentation itself is pretty compelling, let's face it, it's still a filmed slide show--eventually it would have dragged if left as is. Instead, they intersperse the actual presentation with snippets of insight into Gore's childhood & upbringing, footage of him travelling around the country and the world, meeting with scientists and engineers here and abroad, and so forth, with his voiceover continuing. I don't know if the voiceover during these portions is taken straight from the slideshow sections or not, but it adds more layers to what is already a thoughtful, compelling, and often frightening presentation.
--As a Mac guy, I also found it rather amusing that Gore's PowerBook G4--as well as Apple's Keynote presentation software--is so prominently displayed throughout the film, including closeups of the Apple logo and shots of Gore working with Keynote on the slides shown to the audience a few moments later (this actually works well in the film, believe me).
Of course, Gore also sits on the board of directors of Apple--which, perhaps not coincidentally, just happened to announce a major computer recycling program just the other day. Perhaps Gore is influencing Steve Jobs on some environmental policies?
--Gore makes reference to the 2000 election twice, in a very modest and non-grandstanding way. The first is the quip heard in the trailer for the film ("I used to be the next President of the United States"). Later on, when talking about the mistakes we as a people make having severe consequences, is considerably more pointed--there's a brief montage of familiar scenes from the 2000 Florida debacle (shots of Gore, Bush, David Boies, Katherine Harris, the Chad Counting guy, and so forth), concluding with Gore's "...although I strongly disagree..." concession speech.
--The tutorial on just what Global Warming means is done in a very straightforward fashion--followed by a brief, amusing high school science filmstrip-style animation which appears (to me) to have been produced by Matt Groening and the Simpsons team (I could be wrong about this, though).
--Although most of the film is incredibly disturbing and depressing, there is also a surprising amount of humorous bits, and it actually ends on a fairly positive note: Gore seems to honestly believe that we can reverse the trend and that it is not too late (although we're periously close to that point). He uses the Ozone Layer crisis as an example of how a seemingly insurmountable, worldwide environmental crisis can be reversed if the more powerful nations (in particular the U.S.) takes charge...although he also notes that global warming is a far more serious and difficult problem than the ozone layer ever was.