Years of Living Dangerously

The science/star-power combo lends both a sense of urgency and a cinematic sparkle. [11 Apr 2014, p.60]

You might assume that this meant sacrificing some measure of journalistic credibility in the quest for attention. But the truth is, Mr. Ford and Mr. Cheadle are just as good as any seasoned television correspondent at the newsmagazine drill.

The actors are passionate, but not experts. They let the scientists, the workers, the officials, and others tell their stories. It's part of Years of Living Dangerously's refreshing and inclusive tone: it's not important how one gets to this point of understanding the issues, but simply that one does.

Years of Living Dangerously, produced by James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger, does a good job in its premiere of widening the discussion of global warming.

The statistics used are occasionally mind-boggling (enough forest lost every year to cover Germany), and the stars’ intense reactions at times perhaps a little too studied. Nevertheless, the producers build a compelling case, and keep the production moving by flitting among two or three separate celeb investigators in each hour.

Built on a blockbuster framework, Years Of Living Dangerously comes off more like a word-of-mouth sleeper, a documentary that’ll drop science on people drawn in by the promise of Harrison Ford berating a foreign minister like he’s a Russian terrorist who’s not welcome on Air Force One.

It’s a cinematic story whose focus isn’t polar bears and receding glaciers.