James Balog has one goal in mind throughout this entire documentary: to photographically demonstrate the rapid melting of our earth's glaciers. He doesn't throw statistics at us (okay, maybe one or two),and he doesn't bring politics into it, all he does is undeniably prove that the vast majority of the world's glaciers are disappearing right before our eyes.

What this documentary does is capture his journey to photograph these glaciers. It shows his struggles, his failures, and his successes. Yes, he may come off as a bit of a hero, but what he's doing truly is heroic and simply cannot be missed. The photography throughout this film is spectacular--absolutely gorgeous. In fact, he photographed an article on this topic for National Geographic, and if you've seen their photographs, you know the level of quality we're talking about here.

At the same time, however, there's kind of this sense of impending doom amidst all the beauty. It essentially shows all the damage humanity has done, in the past ten or so years alone, and I can only hope it's not too late to fix at least some of what we've caused. If this documentary can't get you to see the world and it's people differently, then I don't think much else can, his results are simply that stunning.

I will admit that I have been curious for this film for a while and after now knowing if it will ever get a theater release in Germany, I was probably occasionally tempted to watch it one way or the other. However, thankfully there were so many other great films and series that I was distracted enough and didn't watch it. So I was even more delighted when I saw that it's finally hitting theaters here in Germany this month, almost 2 years after its world premiere in January 2012 at Sundance. "Chasing Ice" is Jeff Orlowski's very first feature film after two short movies and for that it is especially impressive. The writing is by Mark Monroe, who already worked on the Academy Award winning documentary "The Cove". It can be summarized pretty quickly. The center of the film is photographer James Balog, who tries to depict and prove the existence and impact of climate change by making constantly recordings from vast bodies of ice with the help of self-triggered cameras all over the planet (Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Himalayas...). The first half was okay, even if it got occasionally too scientific for audiences from all ages to appreciate. The second half was better though and very much rewarding as we finally get to see the aforementioned time lapse recordings, which are nothing short of mind-blowing, and it's almost impossible to bring better physical evidence of global warming than Balog did in this movie.

However, I have a few criticisms about the film as well. First of all, I found the narrating about Balog's health issues really distracting from the story. Some others in the audience kept giggling though, so it served as comic relief to some point I guess, but i just didn't really like it, even more so when the story focused too strongly on him. The film is only roughly 75 minutes, so I just thought they should have replaced these parts with some lighter additions to the story of climate change maybe. Some parts felt almost a bit cringeworthy as well, for example when he sits on the sofa and shakes his head to several politicians going on about how climate change is merely fiction or also his big breakdown when the recording has initially not been successful. I don't know if it was real or added for dramatic purposes, but even if I can understand his frustration, it made me feel pretty uncomfortable. I'd have been perfectly fine with the parts where they interview his family about his motivations and how they see him and his endeavors. That would have been enough background story for me. Another minor criticism I have was about one scene where some of Balog's coworkers caught a fish and present it to the audience as their dinner meal. Now while I don't eat animals myself, I don't mind other people who do eat them, but this whole demonstration and how they were shoving it into people's faces was rather inappropriate, especially for a film that tells us to stop exploiting out planet, even if it's from a completely different angle.

Aside from that, you get a really impressive nature documentary. That water current which shoots down into nowhere was particularly impressive and it is brilliant evidence how, even with people taking over most of the planet, nature's forces are still unmatched. I'd give the film a 3/5, but I'll add another point for the brilliant Oscar-nominated song that is included. It was written by Josh Ralph and performed by Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell. You have to make a bit of a connection to link the lyrics and the film's content and maybe that was what kept the film from beating Adele's "Skyfall", but if you manage, it's a wonderful piece of art and Johansson's raunchy voice (which makes me wish she narrated the whole documentary) is perfect for the tone of the song and film. Really a thing of beauty.

'CHASING ICE': Four Stars (Out of Five)

This critically acclaimed and immensely popular documentary provides undeniable proof that climate change is indeed a very real problem that we're all to blame for. It follows National Geographic photographer James Balog around the Arctic as he sets up revolutionary new time-lapse cameras in order to capture the world's melting glaciers as they disappear. It's directed by Jeff Orlowski (who's previous directing experience is in shorts) and written by Mark Monroe (who also wrote such popular documentaries as 'THE COVE' and 'THE TILLMAN STORY'). The movie is a very educational and important film that's a little slow-paced (definitely) but worth the watch for everyone.

The film revolves around National Geographic photographer James Balog who was once a skeptic about climate change but found conclusive evidence in his own Extreme Ice Survey that it is in fact a very real threat. The movie follows him and his team across the Arctic as they plant cameras in order to record the glaciers melting over a multiple year period of time. The task proves to be very daunting and frustrating at first, especially for Balog (who severely hurts his knee doing the hiking necessary for the adventure). The team eventually accomplishes what they set out to do though and Balog is able to provide the world years of video of giant ice glaciers melting, compressed into seconds.

The movie is extremely slow-paced but it does build to a powerful conclusion. The point of this movie is not to entertain though but to inform. I definitely can't say it's one of my favorite documentaries but it is a very important one. It's also very moving watching this man's (Balog) passion and heroics in attempting to make the world a better place. Just informing people of course isn't enough though. Getting people to do something about the problem is a lot harder task in reality (but this film should definitely help). The Oscar nominated song, played at the film's conclusion and sung by actress Scarlett Johansson, is very moving as well. I've never had any real doubt that climate change is real, to me people that question it are as unreasonable as those that question whether we've landed on the moon, but this film should definitely help the ignorant face the truth a little more.

Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFTKqX4Wyew