This movie is about Al Gore and about climate change.
Which is hardly surprising. It must take enormous self-belief to pick oneself up from the highly questionable Supreme Court decision to reverse what most believed was a successful bid for the Presidency, to get into the water again in a highly successful business career, and to surmount a vicious smear campaign after "An Inconvenient Truth" was followed by an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize.
And so we see Gore encouraging an enormous volunteer base as they train to lead awareness campaigns about Climate Change. We watch him wheeling and dealing at the Paris Agreement. Much of what we see was filmed pre-Trump, though some of Trump's demolition of Climate Change measures are alluded to.
What is surprising is just how optimistic the presentation is. Sure, we follow Gore through typhoon devastated Philippines, over melting ice sheets in Greenland, and recollect how Gore was derided for warning that climate change could lead to the flooding of the World Trade Centre memorial as we watch footage of such flooding actually happening. All of the visuals are arresting and convincing.
But the elephant in the room is Donald Trump. Gore seems convinced that what is needed is for a grass roots movement to doggedly and determinedly keep on keeping on. We can but hope he is right and re-charge our batteries by re-visiting the issues in this utterly compelling sequel.
