Review of Climate Hustle (2016) by Joshua S — 02 May 2016

As with most documentaries, if you are unfamiliar with the subject matter, they make for great introductions and overviews. However, if you're well versed in a subject, they tend to disappoint. The content of the film was decent, though not always compelling. There were several times in the documentary when I expected a certain study to be cited or point to be made that ultimately ended up being a missed opportunity. Possibly the film was edited into a weaker argument than it could have been, but at any rate it was a bit underwhelming at points. What was there was good, but what was missing made it a bit disappointing for me.

The bigger disappointment was production value. Many segments of the film had poor and uneven sound and some of the CGI was very cheap and unprofessional looking. I understand that not all documentaries have big budgets, but better to allocate your limited resources to quality cameras and microphones and simply forgo CGI, green screens, transitions and animations. Many documentaries I've seen look fantastic without any of these "frills" thrown in.

So overall, I give it a 3/5 star rating- it takes a 1 star hit for content, which could've been stronger and a 1 star hit for production value. I would've preferred a more methodical and serious tone to the rather light-hearted and campy one utilized in this film, but that's just me. I'd still recommend it to people who need an easy entry point to the debate.