Chasing Ice (2012)
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 68
Fresh: 65 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 8/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 8,580
Movie Info
Acclaimed National Geographic photographer James Balog was once a skeptic about climate change. But through his Extreme Ice Survey, he discovers undeniable evidence of our changing planet. In Chasing Ice, Balog deploys revolutionary time-lapse cameras to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Traveling with a team of young
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Cast
-
James Balog
James -
Svavar Jonatansson
Svavar Jonatansson -
Adam LeWinter
Adam LeWinter -
Jeff Orlowski
Jeff Orlowski -
Tad Pfeffer
Tad Pfeffer -
Jason Box
Jason Box -
Louie Psihoyos
Louie Psihoyos -
Kitty Boone
Kitty Boone -
Sylvia Earle
Sylvia Earle -
Dennis Dimick
Dennis Dimick -
Suzanne Balog
Suzanne Balog -
Synte Peacock
Synte Peacock -
Thomas Swetnam
Thomas Swetnam -
Terry Root
Terry Root -
Peter Hoeppe
Peter Hoeppe -
Gerald Meehl
Gerald Meehl -
Emily Balog
Emily Balog -
Martin Nørregaard
Martin Nørregaard -
Simone Balog
Simone Balog -
James Woolsey
James Woolsey -
Martin Sharp
Martin Sharp
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All Critics (70) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (65) | Rotten (3)
Still an eco-sceptic? Clap your eyes on this lot. Awe-inspiring, terrifying, transcendently beautiful, and absolutely weighted with significance for the future of the planet.
Top CriticThe most important documentary of the year.
"Chasing Ice" is a grand adventure, a visual amazement and a powerful warning.
If you're looking for eye-popping evidence that the world's glaciers are melting, don't miss the small-scale but spectacular documentary, Chasing Ice.
The rapid disappearance of ice mountains, filmed over a period of years, is compressed through time-lapse technology into minutes and seconds. The speeded-up effect is harrowing and also, disturbingly, eerily beautiful.
The movie might have given us a bit less of Balog and a bit more of the startling sequences he produced.
On one hand, it's humbling to watch as a glacier the size of five football fields slumps into the ocean like a defeated whale, while on the other it's eye-opening to think about how cataclysmic the effects could be in years to come.
As a documentary, it offers most of its likely viewers grim confirmation of what they already know, rather than the thrill of discovery.
Less a didactic 'message-movie' than a study of one man's steely determination, the debut helmer directs with a sure hand and no-frills aesthetic.
Beautiful, affecting documentary about glacier retreat.
If seeing equals believing, then this film's documentation ought to sway the world. But daredevil heroes and sexy screen goddesses probably help the medicine go down.
While visually and emotionally stunning, "Chasing Ice" raises almost as many questions as it answers.
Chasing Ice will open your eyes to a world you've never seen before and it will make you think. But whether any of us can change anything is a different matter altogether.
Global Warming? "Seeing is believing."
While skeptics continue to doubt global warming is a man-made phenomenon - Rush Limbaugh called warnings about it "garbage science" - "Chasing Ice" leaves little doubt it is occurring.
It's an absorbing and vital watch.
It's like watching our world disappear.
A few scientists pop their heads in here, a few charts are deployed, but Chasing Ice is powered primarily by the imagery, stark, irrefutable evidence that the planet is warming, not in one or two isolated places but everywhere.
"Chasing Ice" is a beautiful film to watch, especially on the big screen. But the documentary's visual pleasures come with a heavy dose of guilt.
It's sobering stuff but the film's impact is somewhat diminished by Orlowski's reverential profile of Balog, who continues to crusade despite the toll his endeavours have taken on his body.
The documentary feels a little slight but the images speak for themselves ...
Is this about the hazards of global warming or the awesomeness of James Balog? Not entirely sure...
If any film can convert the climate-change sceptics, Chasing Ice would be it: here, seeing really is believing.
While more detailed scientific analysis and greater discussion of impacts would have been welcome, the film's visual rhetoric is solid.
National Geographic photographer James Balog illustrates climate change with time-lapsed records of glacial retreat.
A project of heroic, Herzogian endeavour. Mad, you might say. But probably not as mad as what the rest of us are doing about climate change: namely almost nothing.
Audience Reviews for Chasing Ice
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Top Headlines
Most documentaries about global warming and other such social problems take an alarmist stance and quickly become so over-bearing in their message that I find myself saying, "Yes, yes, we're all going to die. I understand. Ho hum." But the film's focus on the process of setting up the cameras and Balog's courageousness makes it more about the process than pounding depressing evidence into my head.
Balog's photographs are striking. They're beautifully tragic, just as they are intended to be.
Overall, this is a good documentary about an important social problem, and its strength is that it doesn't try to beat the shit out of any happiness you might still be able to muster.