Takes itself way too seriously

Don't Believe the Hype

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Sometimes powerful documentary on global warming, it has two key problem. First, it often comes close to feeling like it is overstating its case, presenting things in a very skewered, Michael Moore like way, but without the irony or humor. I'm a great believer in the science of global warming and the urgent need to do something, but- at least from what I've read - this film took some worst case scenarios and presented them as mainstream established fact.Also, for me, the linking device of Pete Postlewaite (an actor I love) as a man in the future looking back at film clips to see where we all went wrong is dorky at first, then dorky, preachy and dull, Any film that ends with "The end?" is a little cute for me. But the subject is important enough, that if this makes it accessible, say, for kids, that is a worthwhile thing.

The subject of climate change is often covered but rarely brought to the big screen. This ambitious low budget project is well worth viewing because it will make you think just that little more about how we're draining resources on earth.It's a neat idea. The late and much missed Pete Postlethwaite is an archivist who spends the entire film touching a computer screen showing us reasons why the planet ended up in such a desolate state in 2055.Interlaced with six separate documentary stories covering various aspects of climate change are snippets of news recordings, social commentary and animation hybrid. It all works rather well, your interest is kept high and the stories all work the grey matter into overdrive. All held together by Postlethwaite who in reality has very little to do but does it rather well nonetheless. Most certainly worth a watch and just may well tempt you to try reduce your carbon emission. A good effort all round.

Of late, indie & to a lesser extent corporate media is flooded with "awareness-type" documentaries that try to present a green point of view, and shake people out of apathy.The Age of Stupid is one of the better attempts in regard at least to asking the right question: "why are we not stopping when it's obvious to just about everyone that things cannot go on this way for much longer?".I wouldn't call the answers provided by the film "excellent" but at least in part they are closer to truth than most of the ones presented in other documentaries. For example, compared to "Home", it's in a completely different class at tackling real issues. Home does nothing to address the real issues but just hits you with pretty pictures and says to go petition your local administration. Gore's flick barely scratches the surface but maybe as another reviewer noticed, it was necessary at the level of people's thinking at the time.The single documentary I've seen so far that really covers the "whole story" is the less known 2007 "What a way to go. Life at the end of empire." That one goes to the very bottom of the question of "why aren't we stopping" and does an almost excellent job at getting the viewer to understand, not only rationally but also emotionally what's actually going on.On the bright side, in more "mainstream" docu's on global warming & the "other (far more important) stuff" I see a move from surface scratching stuff like Gore's "Truth" to more in depth movies, like "age of stupid".On the downside, global warming is still the overarching theme of the movie, and the more serious issues don't get the attention they deserve. Global Warming may be "Civilization-threatening" but it's a warm breeze compared to ecological collapse due to agriculture-induced extinction. A warmer planet may be bad for big cities, a domino-like failure of life-cycles on the other hand... The dangerous part of these kind of documentaries is giving the impression that rationing your carbon foot-print is enough, that "going green" will make a difference, it does not, it just reinforces complacency and the idea that "I'm doing something, so everything is going to be just fine". Sorry folks, it's not... and no matter how carbon-free our products are we're still in deep s**t. Or put otherwise, we can destroy life on earth using solar as well as oil... as long as that's the main goal.

Thank The Heavens!! If films like this and al gore are the force behind committing economic suicide then rest assured my follow friends who posses commonsense....we are safe for now! What a self serving holy then thou piece of nonsense this film is. It seeks only to provoke emotion and all commonsense is regarded as being evil earth hating thoughts. You may think this film will only serve to excite the disciples of global warming, but in fact it does much more.....It proves (to the independent thinker) how far the religion of global warming has come, this movie will scare most into avoiding the cult not joining it!!!