The Corporation

Scott Hardie: “It was ok.”

If you don't like Michael Moore, don't buy it when someone tells you that you'll like "Fahrenheit 911" anyway. If you don't believe that corporations are the most dangerous, evil force on Earth – which this documentary establishes as its primary assumption from the get-go – don't expect to like this movie, either. That's not to say that either film isn't worth seeing, just that they suffer from fatal cases of preaching to the choir; you pretty much have to begin in agreement with them to get anything out of them. The other primary problem with this documentary is its overzealousness in proving the threats posed by corporations: Instead of establishing a clear thesis and choosing only evidence to support that thesis, it spends two and a half long hours chronicling every story it can find that suggests the evils of corporations, from the patenting of animal genomes to the suppression of journalistic integrity to the ownership of natural elements like water to the inequity of sweatshop labor to the support of fascism in the pursuit of profit. Most of the tales that it tells are interesting, but it would benefit immensely by choosing an angle and sticking to it, rather than issuing a blanket condemnation of all corporate practices no matter the industry. The film is intelligent and occasionally funny and well-edited by co-director Jennifer Abbott, but it is less than the sum of its parts.

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