Critic Reviews

There is something interestingly non-argumentative and personal about this documentary. It is gentle and reflective, a paean to his own youth and idealism that have been preserved in the ice.

Taking Lorius’ own incredible expedition footage and giving it a whimsical bent and a voiceover, Jacquet shapes a powerful portrait of the world and its soothsayer.

The documentary advances its cause through an intimately diaristic depiction of hard work done well.

As a result of Lorius and his team discovering that they could accurately date every nuclear weapon test from radioactive material found in Antarctic ice, there was an international treaty banning such tests, with over 100 nations signing on to it.

In terms of its form, the film is rather classically assembled, combining a voice-over narration with archive material (some of it never previously seen) and spectacularly filmed and staged shots of the now 83-year-old Lorius as he witnesses the havoc caused by the climate change he saw coming some 30 years ago in various locales around the world.

The movie is both heady (there are real thrills in the stories of exploration) and sobering (Mr. Lorius’s findings are convincing). This is a cogent, accessible cinematic delineation of an increasingly crucial problem.

As one voyage turns to two, three and then four, Ice and the Sky feels increasingly formulaic in structure; however, it remains a thorough and fitting tribute to an extraordinarily dedicated and humble individual with an "incontestable message".

The archive footage is compelling, but the soundtrack is a muddle of voice-over, music and effects.

The film itself is more a record than a narrative: proof to the future that, yeah, we knew.

If you can block out that verbal frenzy, though, the last chapters of Antarctica: Ice & Sky are, finally, a compelling narrative (who wouldn’t be interested in the idea of “fossil air?”) and yet another scientific explanation of global warming.