Leave it to Al gore to be more interesting and endearing as an educational lecturer than he was a candidate for President of the United States.

That’s exactly the case in the wonderful – and absolutely terrifying – global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” In all honesty, if Gore had been this funny, this emotional, this gosh darn human (instead of coming across as a stiff animatronic robot) during the 2000 campaign all that hubbub in Florida never would have happened.

Whatever. This movie still proves to be a nifty bit of second act transformation. Quite simply, political ideologies aside (and no matter what you think of the current administration or their policies) it is impossible to not to come away from David Guggenheim’s (the executive producer behind big budget flicks like “Training Day”) new feature and not be struck dumb by the scope of the crisis facing our planet. There is enough here to drive a person mad, the fact a country like China has higher emissions and gas mileage standards than the U.S., standards we’re not planning to match for another ten-plus years, truly staggering.

For those thinking they’re walking into an ideological diatribe, be in for a surprise. Gore’s partisan views (or opinions of the Bush administration) aren’t exactly a secret, but he backs up his claims on this ecological front with enough facts, figures and irrevocable evidence the only way a person could still believe global warming is a myth when the curtains come down is to have slept through the entire thing wearing earplugs and a blindfold. Pictures of various mountain ranges with their disappearing snowcaps, water temperature readings spanning decades, yearly climate charts showing the ten hottest years on record have appeared during the last fourteen. It’s all pretty horrifying, and for those who try and claim nature moves too slowly for humanity to document here’s proof that belief is only a clueless misconception.

Why this works so well, though, isn’t because of Gore’s grasp of the science (which is astonishing) but because Guggenheim gives audiences a chance to know the man like never before. This is a personal side of the former Vice President that’s completely new to us. Growing up on a tobacco farm, almost losing his son, his sister’s untimely death due to lung cancer; Gore lays it all on the table for the world to see showing sides of himself I hadn’t the first inkling of a clue about.

Some of it gets a little obnoxious. I may have voted for the guy but listening to him whine about not being President gets a little old. It’s also hard to get past the fact that, despite some wonderfully compelling moments with the ex-VP, the majority of this documentary is nothing more than a glorified PowerPoint presentation. It’s all graphs, charts, pictures, figures and spreadsheets, and as fascinating as many of these are after a while they do sort of start blending together.

Luckily, this myriad grouping of facts and figures is compelling, so much of what occurs in “An Inconvenient Truth” impossible to ignore. The movie isn’t so much about global warming as it is a global warning, and if Al Gore and his traveling scientific road show have anything to say about it’s a warning none of us are soon to forget.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 4)