‘Hour’ of gloom, doom

You know a documentary is a yawn when the biggest laugh from the audience comes when James Woolsey quotes Winston Churchill.

The trailer may prominently feature narrator-heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio to the strains of a rockin’ Linkin Park song, but don’t be fooled: “The 11th Hour” is mostly an hour and a half of talking heads that gives short shrift to its best elements.

The premise of the doc is that the world is facing a global environmental crisis. Global warming, pollution and overfishing are making our world unlivable. The United Nations estimates that by the middle of the century, there will be 150 million environmental refugees. Cambridge theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, speaking completely outside his area of expertise, envisions Earth ending up like Venus, with sulfuric acid raining from the skies.

Tom Linzey, executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, succinctly captures the doomsday tone: “Not only is it [the] 11th hour, it’s 11:59 and 59 seconds.” (He’s also responsible for the biggest howler of the film: Everything’s going to hell-in-a-hand-basket because the Constitution “protects the corporate few.” He adds, “Nature has rights, too.”)

The doc features more than 50 experts, mostly authors and heads of environmental organizations. They all ride different hobbyhorses. So we hear one saying that the sun can’t sustain everyone’s energy needs, while another implies it can.

A good narrative thread would have supplied much-needed coherence, but we hardly hear from Mr. DiCaprio, who also helped produce. It also would have made things more lively. Listening to talking heads can get tiring after a while. So can stock footage: Times Square is a frequent stand-in for conspicuous consumption.

That’s until the last third of the film. After all the doom-and-gloom, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We hear from architects and designers who are building more environmentally friendly homes and office buildings. Architect William McDonough explains a building that behaves like a tree. There’s a dance club powered by human movement and an airplane powered by hydrogen and the sun.

This stuff is fascinating, and it’s what filmmaking sisters Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners should have made their entire documentary about. But perhaps human ingenuity doesn’t sell as well these days as human destruction.

**

TITLE: “The 11th Hour”

RATING: PG (mild disturbing images and thematic elements)

CREDITS: Written and directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners.

RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes

WEB SITE: www.11thhourfilm.com

MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS.