THE 11TH HOUR

RYAN: I’d like to go on record and thank Caroline for going to see a very boring documentary so I didn’t have to.

CAROLINE: OK, it’s not very boring; but it’s not incredibly exciting either. It’s “The 11th Hour,” which is Leonardo DiCaprio’s version of “An Inconvenient Truth.” We all know Leo is an environmental activist and he now presents to us this movie about global warming.

RYAN: Obviously, I think global warming is an important issue, but didn’t we already get the message with “Arctic Tale” and the Al Gore movie?

CAROLINE: Well, the different thing about this movie is that Leonardo puts himself in the role of interviewer, rather than presenter like Al Gore. Leonardo basically interviewed a bunch of scientists, writers and environmental experts, and he’s only on camera sporadically when he stands outside in some natural setting and pontificates about the state of the world.

RYAN: Is he in the movie enough to justify any die hard Leonardo fan going to see it?

CAROLINE: Not really. I mean, little girls are not going to want to see this movie. It’s very science-y and it’s kind of long. It’s basically feels like a science class lecture and it’s only 90 minutes long, but I started to lose it after about 60.

RYAN: Do we learn anything new about global warming? We know it’s bad, we know it’s threatening the existence of our planet. We’ve learned that in previous films. So what’s new here?

CAROLINE: Not so much. Honestly, it’s kind of like watching “The Secret.”

RYAN: [laughs’ That movie that Oprah made?

CAROLINE: It’s a bunch of different talking heads discussing our imminent demise unless we change our ways quickly. The format totally reminded me of “The Secret” though.

RYAN: Maybe it should have been direct to DVD with no theatrical release.

CAROLINE: Then Oprah could do a big show about it.

RYAN: Exactly.

CAROLINE: The only thing I really hated was the way the movie opens. It’s so preachy and annoying; just shot after shot of horrible natural disasters spliced with shots of fetuses in a womb. It’s like a big announcement saying “Get ready – this movie is going to be about catastrophic global warming” and it hits you over the head with its “message.” I was like, “OK, I get it. I know what I’m in for, and I don’t need to see all this.”

RYAN: Bottom line?

CAROLINE: At the end of the day, Leonardo does interview some really interesting people with intelligent viewpoints in this movie. It’s interesting for an hour, and then I could have been done.