FINALLY: World Without Cows.

“World Without Cows” isn’t officially an 81-minute cattle-industry advertisement arguing that beef is crucial to humankind’s survival, but skeptical viewers can be forgiven for thinking it is. The big takeaway from this documentary is: yes, as you’ve heard, cows (a catch-all here that incorporates all kinds of “beef animals,” to use the movie’s language) do require a tremendous amount of food themselves, and their care takes up a lot of real estate all over the world, but without them, much of the world would be even hungrier than it is at the moment, and…

We’ll unpack all this in due course. For now, let’s say that, for all its intelligence and sensitivity, watching this movie feels a bit like listening to an automobile dealer explain why we can’t live without cars. The author of this review, while not pro- or anti-cow, is far from a vegan, and in fact took the family to Charco Broiler before watching this movie, and is not likely to lead protests against the cattle industry or the businesses that support them anytime soon, but also wouldn’t stop anybody who wanted to. But many aspects of “World Without Cows” may set off your own b.s. detector, and not just because the movie’s pro-beef arguments focus largely on cows’ consumption and excretion of vegetable matter.

I’m holding out for the sequel, “World Without Farting Airplanes.”