How To Change The World

This absorbing account is hardly definitive, but it teaches movement building without denying the high costs paid by true believers.

A fascinating, skillfully assembled chronicle of the rise and inevitable fallout surrounding the granddaddy of the environmental activism movement.

Whatever you think of Greenpeace's less well-considered antics over the years, How to Change the World is a compelling story of one environmentalist's remarkable combination of prescience, grit and timing.

Almost a "found footage" movie, it makes excellent use of 1,500 archived 16 mm reels supplemented with fresh interviews and some animation.

The goldmine of 16mm color footage, whose propagandic value participants were quite cognizant of at the time, is in mint condition, showing the excitement and fun of the movement in its earliest days.

How to Change the World is in clear sympathy with the environmental causes Greenpeace champions but its portrait of the organisation is quite spiky and probing.

An inspiring, affecting odyssey about flower children transforming into a "seagoing gang of ecological bikers".

Flat-out excellent documentary detailing the origins, evolution and internal squabbling of Greenpeace. Far from propaganda.

Rothwell does a great job organising this material. It becomes an epic story, partly because of the clashes of ego between these passionate men.

A warts-and-all history of Greenpeace full of colorful characters and beset by twists and surprises. An inspiring, even exhilarating tribute.

It's fun and eventful, if hardly revelatory.

Jerry Rothwell's punchy film is less concerned with the official Greenpeace narrative than with the often conflicting testimonies of those involved.