BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU This documentary is based and constructed around one quote by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his address before the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 25, 1961:"Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."The logic of the film is simple. We have' more than twenty thousand nuclear devices in the world in the hands of a very small number of countries and thus in the hands of machines that control them, military personnel that manages the machine and political personnel that controls the military personnel that controls the machines that control the nuclear devices. All along that command line individuals can make the wrong evaluation of a situation, take the wrong decision on the basis of that wrong evaluation and within 20 to 30 minutes it will have happened: one city or more will have been destroyed, and within a few more minutes, retaliation will come. And once it is started it cannot be stopped. There is no comeback, no turn-back, nor step-back. In that command line we just need an accident caused by some mechanical failure, or some miscalculation brought up by the misinterpretation of some data provided by the machines, or some madness, or let's say some mental derangement of one actor in that chain of command. The film provides several instances of close to the brink situations that occurred over the years. Evaluation of the damage in the case of one nuclear weapon on one big city in the world is just over-dramatic and seems to only play on fear in the audience. If the public is only motivated by fear, then there is no hope.Hope can only come if the public, the vast wide general public is convinced we have to get rid of nuclear weapons not because they are afraid but because of positive reasons like the fact humanity means life, means creative development, means continued progress, and nuclear weapons, both possession and use, are none of these, not life, not creative development, not continued progress. We could also develop some positive ethical arguments going the same way, provided we clearly see the difference between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Just like nuclear power can be used in nuclear submarines or in nuclear ships it may have one day to be used in space travel, and not fission but fusion. Not using nuclear energy for weapons is definitely nothing but an ethical decision and the mark of ethical human control of humanity. It is not because the internal combustion engine was used in tanks that we are supposed to ban the internal combustion engine, all cars and many other applications. It is not because some planes are military bombers that we are supposed to ban air travel.That's the first shortcoming of this film: nuclear energy is not clearly differentiated from nuclear weapons and yet only the French images project the confusion by stating "NON AU NUCLÉAIRE" (No Nuclear) meaning the rejection of both nuclear energy and weapons, though in fact in the mind of the French people who put forward this motto (the Greens), it is nuclear energy they have in mind. The images from all other countries and the interviews always target nuclear weapons. But it would be clear to say that nuclear energy is another can of worms and these worms might be earth worms, very useful worms for agriculture, gardening and hence surviving hunger. The second shortcoming is the very ambiguous message about terrorism and about proliferation. The film insists with images and long sequences on the Islamic danger of Pakistan who has nuclear weapons – supposedly thanks to the Chinese, though we do not know where the Chinese got the technology, from the Soviets maybe? – and who sells the blue print as much as the technology to anyone who wants to pay. The Pakistani bomb is called the Islamic Nuclear Bomb and it is at once connected to Al Qaeda and Iran, and allusions to more Muslim countries in the Middle East or the Arab world are added. Nothing is said about the proliferation of nuclear weapons to India, the Hindu Bomb, etc., and where it could have come from – the Soviets I guess? And still along that line there are a few elements about North Korea, still under the rule of Kim the Second, not yet Kim the Third. This presentation is absolutely biased and debatable. And what about France, Great Britain and Israel?Terrorism is a problem but we have other forms of terrorism than Islamic terrorism, even today. Terrorism has causes and to only speak of containing and controlling it is a waste of time since it will bring no solution to the real causes. And by the way how did the apartheid South Africa manage to get nuclear fuel to be able to build nuclear weapons at a time when a total embargo was imposed onto this country for anything military? And the film is a little bit short on the fact that there are an unevaluated and definitely uncontrolled amount of Highly Enriched Uranium and Plutonium running loose on the planet's black market, enough to produce thousands of nuclear weapons of various categories from a dirty bomb to a real nuclear weapon. And this black market can only exist because of the diamond and other gems black market, because of the uncontrolled speculative financial market and the vast international financial laundering machine through and via the various fiscal paradises and tax havens.To be seen, widened and discussed as much as possible.Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

davegriffin1234 This is the first time I've written an online movie review, and it's out of annoyance that I was compelled to do so.Having read the reviews for this movie both on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, this "documentary" looked quite interesting. However, on watching I got the uneasy feeling of AGENDA. By the time I saw the satellite picture of Korea, which supposedly showed North Korea being totally blacked out compared to South Korea, I thought bullshit. I paused the movie (I was watching the Blu-ray version so any doctoring of images was easily apparent). Needless to say, the satellite picture was blatantly doctored, with the sea around South Korea apparently emitting more light (through noise) than the entire North Korean mainland (which miraculously emitted no noise and was pitch black). I stopped the movie at this point and decided to write this review.In short, this "documentary" is anything but.

tomgillespie2002 "Every man woman and child, lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness." John F. KennedyThis quote taken from a speech by the former US president, forms the basis for the thesis of this bleak, and sometimes alarming documentary on nuclear weaponry. Outlining a history, from the splitting of the atom, to the creation of the a-bomb by Robert Oppenheimer, the film shows the growth of nuclear armament through many countries, many of whom still have today. The film displays the devastation that such a catastrophe could have on world cities (we have seen the images of Hiroshima before). We are told of near-misses due to "mishaps" and calculations that have gone awry, even by the US military throughout the weapons history.To the general public today, there seems to be no concept of a nuclear threat. A number of people are interviewed on the streets, asking if they feel threatened by an attack of this nature; the majority simply do not feel this threat. Since the cold wars of the 1950's, '60's and 1980's, the concept of nuclear threat has dissipated in the public view. It is no longer a focus of media attention. And yet, whilst the material (Uranium, plutonium) necessary to complete a nuclear weapon is difficult to attain, it is certainly acknowledged that middle-eastern terrorists have absolutely attempted to purchase such raw materials.Lucy Walker's film uses some fantastic archival footage to paint a picture of the threat to our world that still exists. She managed to employ some highly notable talking heads to maintain integrity in her argument (Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Robert McNamara). She manages to highlight how easy it is to smuggle such devastating materials into countries. This is a powerful documentary, however, the threat of such an attack is so limited, that the film seems just too late to create such intrinsic paranoia (I mean, does a scared person, or country - i.e. the backwaters of the USA - really need more to worry about?) The threat just isn't as urgent as, say, in the 1980's when such films posing the question, what if...? where broadcast on television, such as the frightening Threads (1983), made and broadcast by the BBC. It is still a good documentary, with some interesting 'facts', and should certainly be watched by anyone interested in modern history.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

daveinlv While the movie goes into great details about the dangers of nuclear weapons, it neglects to mention an important possible beneficial aspect of them. There are massive objects traveling in the space called NEO (near-Earth object) which come dangerously close to the Earth from time to time. Then there are those called Earth-Crossers whose orbits actually intersect that of the Earth. Astronomers tell us that a collision with such an object is inevitable some time in the future and it could be catastrophic for all life on our planet. If such an object is ever spotted coming at us (Jupiter had such an event only a few years ago) then those much-maligned nukes and ICBMs may be the only weapons in our arsenal with which to defend ourselves and we will not have a whole lot of time to manufacture them from scratch if we do not have some already on hand. While it may not be possible (or even desirable) to destroy such an object altogether, its trajectory may be deflected just enough to make it miss the Earth.Therefore it might be wise for us to think things through before taking any drastic measures for their total elimination.