Who Killed the Electric Car? Review
By David Kempler
Who murdered this movie?
No, it's not your average whodunit. It's the tale of the rise of the electric car in America in the 1990's followed quickly by its fall from grace. It's more of an eradication than a fall, though. At the same time it's about specifically what happened to the electric car in California around the turn of the new millenium.
Around 100 years ago, the electric car was locked in a battle with its gasoline-powered counterpart for control of the exploding marketplace. Gas won out but electric made a comeback, 'fueled' by out of control gasoline prices in the 1990's. "Who killed the Electric Car?" treats this as a mystery novel and shows us all of the suspects - oil companies, government, stupid consumers, auto manufacturers etc. - and presents all of the evidence before rendering a decision.
It's not very difficult to figure out what's going to happen and who the evildoers will be. This is one of the central problems of the film. It's hard to pull off a story like this because we all already know the answers. There are some interesting facts and details along the way but even then we're not exactly shocked. Did you know that there is a connection between the oil companies and our government!? Really, there is.
"Who Killed the Electric Car?" is narrated by Martin Sheen and has a sprinkling of celebrities, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Phyllis Diller, to name a few, (Who would have thought that Phyllis Diller would be in two movies in the past year?) and they all make the case for the ridiculous situation we currently find ourselves in, of gas prices flying off the charts and the auto companies responding by building more gas-guzzling SUVs. By the way, if you do see it, you won't believe what the current version of Mel Gibson looks like. It's downright scary.
Despite its good intentions and some truly fascinating betrayals by our government, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is very low-key and it drags on for to what seems like an eternity. A movie dealing with the current energy crisis should not display such little oomph, but it does, and ultimately it stalls out.
