Wonderful Movie

What a waste of my time!!!

Masterful Movie

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

There is no reason in this piece of film. Only hysterics. More than an hour of emotion to feed the people who want to be angry at something.There was an electric car. It is gone. The audience gets to see the crushed car bodies nicely done from the air. How was that car? There is no technical description. No parameters. Just the feeling of an actor. Sure, as a rich actor he probably droves lots of cars, but the comparison was probably left on the editing floor.And that miracle car was literally crushed. Why? No answer. The gesture is so dramatic and so illogical and the speakers talk about the before and after, never why.As for specialists? A politician who does not like the air he breathes so he builds a career in that place. Reliable. Was he one of the paper pushers who helped kill that electric car? Who cares! He is on "our side" so he must be a "good guy". Other technical people: an actor, one so busy you can see him taking time to become an engineer. And a columnist. He is an English major probably, but he heard a lot of hearsay back in the day when he was doing filed work instead of just reading the blogs as today.So watch it, if you need to fuel your confirmation bias.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

I feel this movie deserves a fair rating of 10. On this particular topic, maybe a decade from now, maybe even less than that, people are going to look at petroleum-based cars and ask "why?". It is not a debate on whether electric cars work, we should be asking ourselves, why it took so long for us to finally have them. I am baffled by reviews that say this is conspiracy, unrealistic - well 100% electric cars are here, as a matter of fact, they were here before the petroleum- based cars, just do some research or like I did, go to Edison and Hord Winter Estates in Fort Myers, FL. This is not why IMHO a 10 is not an extreme for this particular movie, it gives the viewers so much reality, on how difficult it is to pursue one's passion and life-long dream, how much stress, humiliation, and hardship they have to go through to overcome a world that resists changes for whatever reasons(stubbornness, money, or sometimes just not being well-informed), to succeed and influence. It opens up so much more for us to question(who's there to conspire for one), to learn and to make better, well-informed decisions when it comes to our own actions.

Contains spoilerRotEC is a movie not so much about the cars as about the people behind them. It covers the struggles, wins and losses of Bob Lutz of GM (Chevy Volt), Elon Musk (Tesla), Carlos Ghosn (Nissan Leaf) and Greg "Gadget" Abbott (Left Coast Electric). I was struck by several things. First, Bob Lutz and Elon Musk have a huge amount of swagger, personality and self-confidence, which may also be described as being "full of yourself". On the other hand, you probably need a lot of that to make it in the business. Lutz has been around for years in the industry, probably knows everybody, could walk away at any time and retire, but sticks with the job to preserve his "legacy". By the end of the movie, when he does retire, he reminded me of a former President or General, knowing that the world has moved on, and he's no longer critical to its functioning. It's bittersweet, but he might be called out of retirement at any time....As for Elon Musk, watching him was like watching a stunt flier at an air show who gets really, really close to the ground one too many times. As an aside, his entire family is pretty dynamic. His sister is a movie producer and his brother runs a social media business. Anyway, it seemed like most of the movie was just him telling Tesla employees, "C'mon guys, we have to get this done". I got the impression the movie didn't show the back room stuff where the hardball decisions were made. The movie was pretty good at showing you just how close to the edge of failure he seemed to live, when he had a warehouse full of cars needing rework, and creditors breathing down his neck. In spite of everything, all the people saying this is the end, get ready for bankruptcy, etc., Tesla survives, cars are delivered and now he's bringing up the Model S factory in Fremont CA. The best line in the movie about him was something to the effect of "I have to admire the guy, he's really doing something, as opposed to people who sit around and criticize and tell you how you will fail."As for Nissan, I've heard Ghosn speak before about the LEAF, but RotEC shows him as slightly cut-throat, which was new for me. He's pretty swaggering as well, but in an outwardly friendly way. I really enjoyed him telling a Nissan Exec, "Every day they aren't building a car is a good day for us." He got Nissan in a crouch, and I think he pounced when Nissan announced the price of the Leaf. Is Th!nk the first casualty? He probably has more up his sleeve...The guy I like best, and can relate to the best was Greg Abbott, referred to simply as Gadget. Man, if I knew half what that guy knows about building stuff, that would be pretty cool. He had this really great garage that did ev conversions, but it was burned to the ground by what the movie said was random arson. No cars, no tools, no shop, nothing. As he's digging around through the rubble, he finds an undamaged charge controller with its LED light still on. It brought a tear to my eye when he says "With this, I can build a car!" Go man, go. Eventually, he brings up Left Coast Electric again, and the movie closes with him and his wife driving from LA to Palm Springs in his awesomely cool ev conversion. It was a very upbeat and inspiring ending.

Bottom line- if you liked "Who Killed the Electric Car", you'll like "Revenge of the Electric Car". Where "Who" pointed fingers at people, government, and industry, "Revenge" tells the story of those working hard to bring about a renaissance of the Electric Car. This makes for a different tone in the movie, but the subject matter will seem familiar. Rather than tell the whole story, the movie focuses on representatives. Featured are a couple of large car companies, one making a battery electric, one making a extended range battery electric, a small car company battling amazing odds, and a small shop owner living his dream- converting gas engined cars with the highest possible quality, using carefully selected parts to try to out-do the major car companies. How do you out-do a major car company? Well, that's up to you, isn't it? It could be style, it could be uniqueness, it could be cost. In the case of the EV it could be range or charging time, top speed or durability. Sit back and relax, and drink it all in, as the story unfolds before you. This documentary is easily one of the finest I've seen in a long time. Thanks to the team for making the movie, and a particular thanks to the person who did the opening credits.