Ondi Timoner's feature-length Bjorn Lomborg documentary platform for mapping out facts and fallacies about global warming may shed light on additionally pressing issues like global poverty and lack of clean drinking water but it never brings lets audience into the one-sided conversation.
Famous, and infamous, author Bjorn Lomborg ("The Skeptical Environmentalist") likes to tout his unlikely association to Al Gore's coattails as someone who understands the world's problems better.
After spending the first 20-minutes chronicling how the scientific community attempted to censor Lomborg's book for what it viewed as agenda-driven lies — Lomborg was exonerated in court from such accusations — a narrative takes shape around Lomborg's proposal for how NATO should spend a $250 billion budget to address the world's problems by prioritizing them.
By the time the film comes around to spelling out Lomborg's formula in chalk board black and white, it rushes past so quickly that you don't have time to digest the calculations.
Bjorn Lomborg is shown to be a showman with a very big ego that frequently obfuscates his humanitarian message. "Cool It" is a conversation-provoking film rich with challenging ideas about improving the world using tools available to us. Unfortunately, the director does a disservice to a complex subject overshadowed by a cult of personality.
Rated PG. 87 mins.
