It'll be interesting to see how many people spend an hour and a half in the theater this Labor Day weekend watching Leonardo DiCaprio's documentary about how we are teetering on the edge of global warming catastrophe. It sounds like a bummer way to end the summer. But if moviegoers turn to the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips' review of the film for guidance, then the movie may well be tossed into the rubbish heap along with the year's other flops.
Essentially, according to Phillips, "The 11th Hour" tries to cover everything under the sun...and then some. It's a "panicky blur" that goes "broad, but not deep," and begins with a "frenzied montage of global calamity." Gee, for a guy who's been in the movie business since he was knee high to a grasshopper, you'd think Leo might have come up with a more winning formula.
Here's the money quote:
Like the Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," this one strives to underscore its makers' sense of urgency. But when a film's mission (according to its promotional materials) is to address "the history of the human species, the state of the oceans, land and air, and social, design and political challenges for change," you start to get an idea of why the Green Party has a hard time focusing its arguments come election time.
At the last Academy Award ceremony, Leo stood next to his idol, Al Gore, and applauded him sycophantically. Will Leo's turn for such adulation come next March?
Maybe he should have done a PowerPoint presentation too.
*For more NewsBusters coverage on "The 11th Hour," click here.
