This is a pretty typical environmental/global warming documentary. Judging these kinds of movies always feels a little unfair and not only because of the obvious good intentions of the filmmakers. So much of how effective a movie like this one is has to do with what other movies you’ve seen or haven’t seen. There’s a lengthy section on agricultural issues related to the environment and it has a lot of good info in it, but I’ve already seen King Corn which has all this information and a lot more. And then there’s a section on climate change deniers and, again, this might land better if I hadn’t already seen Merchants of Doubt. But I will say that both Merchants of Doubt and King Corn are as great as they are because of other factors as well as the information contained in them. King Corn just has a really appealing structure and the personal journey of the filmmakers is compelling and fun; Merchants of Doubt really digs into issues of deception on a larger scale and has a real focus on the media as the masters of illusion. And both of those films are strikingly directed. Time to Choose is very straight forward technically, just your typical talking head/voice of God documentary and it has little energy or (strangely) urgency. It’s really just not a very impressive movie, especially not when you consider that the best thing about it is the information and you can get that all elsewhere, in movies that are genuinely great and genuinely works of art in my opinion. One note in case you’re a fanatic: Oscar Isaac does the narration and does a good job with it. 2 stars.
tl;dr – environmental documentary has good intentions, but only rehashes material from better films; unimaginative and technically dull- watch King Corn & Merchants of Doubt instead. 2 stars.