Leonardo DiCaprio’s long-awaited climate movie is a critical dud that also fails to do justice to the climate crisis. How did this happen? — Adam McKay’s latest film as writer-producer-director is a Netflix satire about how humanity reacts (or under-reacts) to the discovery of a killer comet that threatens to wipe out all life on Earth. But by now, most of us know that this uncontroversial story premise serves as an allegory for the…

The ecofeminist superheroine takes on an underlying driver of climate change. — Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), the most recent movie to feature the DC Comics superheroine, is directed and co-written by Patty Jenkins, who also directed the title character’s 2017 origin story and reportedly fought hard for its feminist themes. These included portraying the Amazon princess as a force for love instead…

Disney’s Marvel Studios has been endangering our world through climate denial. — While the Marvel fandom melts down over suspiciously well-timed leaks and rumors surrounding an upcoming Spider-Man movie, we thought it would be timely to revisit Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) in our first retrospective film analysis. Why? Not because we’re nostalgic for the previous Spider-Man installment, which was co-produced with…

Disney’s Marvel Studios tries for climate storytelling but shies away from the truth. — Eternals (2021) is the latest superhero film to hit cinemas and is also Marvel’s worst-reviewed movie to date, scoring only 48% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. That’s too bad given everything the film has going for it, such as an inclusive cast of characters portrayed…

Does Hugh Jackman’s latest movie pass the Climate Test? — Reminiscence (2021) is a new sci-fi film produced by Jonathan Nolan and written by Lisa Joy in what is also her feature directorial debut. Set in a near-future Miami that has been inundated by the rising sea — and where daytime temperatures have risen so high that human activity has…

What makes an effective climate story? — Storytelling can be a powerful tool for change. Scientists recognize this and have called on the arts and entertainment communities to step up and address the communication challenge that climate change represents today. …