Extinction Rebellion has always been a lot of fun in small doses, but a 1hr 20 minute feature-length documentary feels like a slog. Come to Netflix’s Rebellion for Emma Thompson and her pink boat parties in Piccadilly and the hope that the planet might not choke on its own sludgy vomit. Kick your TV through your front window at yet more interminable, behind-the-scenes footage of a student stroking his goatee in his “world-changing” meeting, smugly cutting off a venerated climate lawyer mid-speech: “I’m going to pause you there, I didn’t hear anything you just said because you didn’t put your hand up.”
That’s frustrating, because the XR story is not only GoodTM, but also packed with lots of juicy drama. For a brief, sunny moment in April 2019, the planet’s most famous climate group could do no wrong in the court of public opinion, gluing themselves to Shell’s London HQ, banging bongo drums down Whitehall and baffling police officers with their willingness to be arrested. Politicians here and across the world fell over themselves to declare a “climate emergency”. Britain signed up to a goal of ‘Net Zero’ carbon emissions by 2050. Greta Thunberg was immaculately conceived. Weapons of mass disruption worked wonders. “Wow, I mean, April was an otherworldly experience,” says one wide-eyed blonde. “Every day I’d look at the Evening Standard … how many pages are we in today!”
