Some things I liked some I did not.

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There is good case that the issue of energy and climate needs to be addressed as fiction, since the public is more likely to grasp actors saying lines than it is scientists showing charts.There is a huge amount of drama in upper corporate life, even without the obligatory, and in this case, improbable, sex that needs (according to some unwritten law of scripts) to be included.However, if you are looking for either, don't look here.From the first scene onwards, the improbable aspects of the script overwhelm us. The shooting in the desert could have been carried out by Boy Scouts, for all its effectiveness. They start shooting in broad daylight and still, somehow, manage to miss 14% of the targets.The main character jumps from a middle level flunky position to being chairman of the board, with absolutely no rational explanation. An apparently British oil company reports its earnings as "12 billion Dollars" time and again, as if Pounds didn't exist - as if, by Big Oil industry terms, $12 billion was a lot of money. It is a lot of money, for a decent quarter, for a year it puts them squarely in the middle ranks. The new chairman seems to have nothing to do - which is unlike most chief executives of major companies in my experience - no meetings, no business trips to see operations, clients or bankers etc. He cheerfully accepts a Maybach as a "gift" from some unexplained Arab on his first day at work, which would mean, in the real world, his last day as chairman.The first episode dragged so much, and the story veered all over the place, that there was a danger of getting car sick.The second episode, was, if anything, stranger. Much of it takes place in Calgary, a city I know fairly well (full disclosure: I have spent three decades in and around the oil business) and which is, as a town, almost totally..functional. The Canadian side of the production decided to save money (and energy?) by cutting down on the use if lights, so many of the Calgary scenes are very difficult to see, much less follow.Silly things continue to abound. The Saudi oilfields are in the EAST of the country (generally referred to as "The Eastern Province") and yet the writer kept talking about "The Western Desert" - a term used in Egypt, not in Saudi. Geologic data on an area as large as France and Germany is supposedly gathered by seven secret geologists, and fits into a hard disc the size of an Iphone. The main character looks at it for ten seconds and knows exactly what it is.By 2008, when this was made, the prospect that the Saudis have been exaggerating their oil resources had been a frequent topic of conversation within the industry, and well beyond. Nothing in an Iphone was likely to prove, or disprove that very complicated discussion.I won't even go into the politics, except to say that the BBC managed to "get back" at Hollywood's idiotic habit for many years of automatically casting a Brit as the Bad Guy by casting the entire American government as The Collective Bad Guy.Why did they cast Japanese to play the PRC delegates? Since when did Chinese bow when they shake hands (a Japanese habit, which the Chinese would NOT do just for that reason)? I sincerely hope that oil lobbyist are not quite as incompetent as they are portrayed here, or you have to wonder how they could possibly be effective.In the first episode, the Inuits are central. In the second, they have vanished altogether, in spite of the fact that much of the action takes place in Canada. Were they cut out for reasons of environment?There was some decent music. Direction was slow. The storyline a mess. The characters cardboard cutouts. The issues were so vulgarized as to become meaningless. In short, a waste of time and money.

The plot reverberation with thunderous force of oil politic. The script was gift to the cast who seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to convey the serious message and the message was all too prophetic. Frighteningly prophetic consider the script was written some years earlier. If you read "Carbon Wars" by Jeremy Leggett you will learn that the politics of climate summits is all too real and you'll appreciate that anything published ever by the IPCC is diluted dribble and at least 10 years behind the real consensus of honest scientists and heartfelt politicians.One key message it drives home at the finale moment (that maybe I should have realised before now) is that many US citizens really believe their country will survive or maybe have an overall benefit from climate change. So whilst much of the rest of planet will suffer greatly they have no need to sacrifice there living standard. "Six Degrees" by Mark Lynas tells us that another beneficiary will be Russia, but they risk getting invaded by China for their oil and expanded cultivatable farmland. And so the other key message in the programme's is that climate change and oil shortages could spark world war three. If you live in Europe may not need to worry so much unless - you are under 25. But don't buy a less then 2 meters below sea as it may depreciate in value as the populace becomes more aware of the future risks. This was a great drama with rich dialogue that I could watch again several times. That's the test of a good TV production, the 'watch it again' score.

At once fulfilling and confounding expectations. It has half the cast and all the production values of BBC flagship dramas (Spooks and Hustle) that fall short of their superior American counterparts. But it has backed its ambition with money on wonderful location shoots, Lukas Strebel's feature-grade photography and a trump card of political drama casting.Bradley Whitford tears around this 'TV mini-series' in a Michael Douglas-in-Falling Down buzzcut, making himself the least likable, most watchable character on screen. His gravitas, warped into delivering the ideological heart of the script - not simply that climate change is bad but rather the sociopolitical implications for dealing with it are extremely serious - is the sine qua non of this film's success, such as it is.The principal cast grouped around Whitford dispense the narrative drama ably enough. I found myself more impressed with Neve Campbell than with her British counterparts (Penry-Jones & Marc Warren). Here and elsewhere the script demands a sort of infomercial mentality though which always grates. British TV drama still isn't quite there. 5/10

BURN UP is a sharply made four hour mini-series co-produced between the UK and Canada that tackles environmental issues - chiefly global warming - and wraps them up in a cracking conspiracy thriller. The series begins with a mass murder in the Saudi Arabian desert and climaxes at an environmental summit in Calgary. The main thrust of the plot is that evidence exists proving global warming is much farther along - and far more severe - than was previously believed, but is being suppressed to protect the economy. Acting honors belong to WEST WING vet Bradley Whitford as a morally vacant oil executive (dubbed the "High Prince of Carbon") determined to keep the oil flowing no matter what the damage or cost, and Marc Warren (HUSTLE)as an amusingly blunt British politician fighting against the tide. Fine work is also done by SPOOKS star Rupert Penry-Jones as a young oil executive awakening to the evil he is part of, and Neve Campbell as an environmental advocate working for him. A number of the personnel from SPOOKS worked on the mini-series, including director Omar Madha (doing an exceptional job here), and the intelligent script is by FULL MONTY scribe Simon Beaufoy. Lavishly produced (it actually looks better than a number of films I've seen in recent years) BURN UP is never boring, and achieves what it sets out to do: present a story that engages and thrills the viewer.