By Sara Pintilie/entertainment editor
Can Leonardo DiCaprio save the world? Well, he is sure going to try. And in his green crusade, he produces, co-writes and narrates an entertaining weapon, The 11th Hour.
The documentary comments on the current state of the third rock we call home and illustrates ways the community can bring it to a more greener state.
Along with the Romeo + Juliet star, the film rustled up a collection of respected professionals such as Stephen Hawking, Mikhail Gorbachev and David Suzuki.
The film is split into two parts. The first half deals with everything wrong with the balance between humans and nature. It pretty much states the information the public does, or should by now, know but presents it in a less preachy way.
Though I am environmentally conscious, I am not by any means hard-core green. However, I found the information interesting and the pace of the film entertaining.
The info comes across less urgent than in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, but this causes a fortunate side-effect: it makes the information sound more accurate.
The graphics presented with the facts are a nice touch and add much to the film’s believability.
They make it easier for the audience to visualize what the documentary is trying to say.
For example, Suzuki explains that to replace everything nature does for us would cost about $35 trillion dollars a year. The world economies add up to an estimate of $18 trillion a year.
While he explains this staggering fact, two line graphs show the difference.
The second half of the film gives a more uplifting outlook to the problem.
The professionals explain solutions to the growing problem. They talk about dance clubs powered by human movement, completely green buildings and electric cars charged off each other.
The movie doesn’t appeal to the everyman though. It stresses what the nation as a whole needs to do instead of the little things an individual could do.
Actually, the only contribution attempt in that vein was a The 11th Hour postcard I found at the Angelika with suggestions for a greener life.
So search the lobby if you want to learn tips such as using compact fluorescent light bulbs or turning off the drying feature on your dishwasher.
But The 11th Hour is worth checking out because, as documentaries go, this one is good as green.
