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An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power is relevant and necessary

AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER (Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk). 97 minutes. Opens Friday (August 4). See listing. Rating: NNN


It’s been a decade since An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar and helped galvanize the climate change movement. So, um, how’s that been working out for everybody?

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power serves as both an updated version of Al Gore’s climate crisis slid show and a catchup with the former Vice President of the United States and current ecological champion, now running a climate leadership program designed to prepare a new generation of activists for a life fighting corporate misinformation and fake news. 

Directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, whose credits include The Island President, The Rape Of Europa and Audrie & Daisy, lack the sense of outrage Davis Guggenheim brought to 2006’s An Inconvenient Truth, which was as angry about the 2000 election as it was about global warming. 

Indeed, the greatest tension in their sequel exists between its admission of how truly screwed we are as a species – those superstorms aren’t stopping any time soon, folks – and the glimmers of hope to which Gore tethers his optimism. (Solar panels. Invest now.) 

There are a few other issues. Jeff Beal’s fraught musical score works against Gore’s natural calm, and a sequence in which we see Gore’s Paris broadcast derailed by the terrorist attack at the Bataclan theatre feels ickily self-serving. Yes, the cameras were rolling when that happened, and he did respond to the attacks, but the moment has nothing to do with the thrust of the documentary.

Still, when Cohen and Shenk abandon their gimmicks and just let Gore deliver data, Truth To Power shows us why his work remains utterly relevant and tragically necessary.

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