Cool It

Cool It is an eye-opening yet uneven and overlong documentary detailing the exploits of an academic scientist named Bjorn Lomborg, with the film primarily following his efforts at downplaying the almost hysterical hullabaloo surrounding global warming. It’s worth noting that Cool It gets off to a decidedly uninvolving start, as filmmaker Ondi Timoner ineffectively establishes the credentials of his subject – which essentially forces the viewer to wonder if Lomborg is actually qualified to make his controversial claims or if he’s just a guy with an opinion. Exacerbating matters is an early emphasis on big business and political policy, with the inherently dry nature of this stretch provoking a less than enthralled reaction in the viewer (ie one’s eyes start to glaze over with all the technical jargon). It’s only as the movie segues into its progressively intriguing midsection, which is devoted primarily to Lomborg’s efforts at refuting the various claims within Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, that Cool It finally does become a surprisingly enthralling piece of work, as there’s something undeniably fascinating about watching the film’s subject shut down Gore’s points one by one (and, as someone else notes, the best way to capture the public’s interest on a political issue is to “scare the pants off them.”) Unfortunately, Cool It suffers from a final half hour that is almost exclusively devoted to the various solutions for the global warming problem, with Lomborg relegated to the background and the emphasis once again placed on pervasively dry instances of speechifying. It’s an anti-climactic close that can’t quite diminish the strength of Cool It‘s strong, informative midsection, though it’s clear that the film would’ve benefited from some extremely judicious editing.

**1/2 out of ****