When it's bad it's still pretty good...
Lo and Behold is in my opinion not one of the best efforts by Herzog. It's entertaining, it has Herzog's trademark narration which is great but somehow this film and the way Herzog approached the subject matter feel a little bit hollow. Like Herzog phoned it in.
There are really funny moments like those in the trailer but more often there are moments that feel a bit cheap. For example there is a family interviewed who where victim of being harassed on the internet. People where sending them gruesome pictures of their daughter who died in a car accident. This family is still pretty much damaged by these events. Instead of delving deeper in to why people do such awful things Herzog uses the family for laughs. Maybe this was not his intention but because their story was so minimal we got to see caricatures of who these people are really like. Which feels a bit lazy.
The same goes for some of the other people interviewed. Herzog does his best to get an poetic or thoughtful response but most of the time people just look at him like they don't understand the question. Of course for each of the moments there is a brilliant scene just around the corner. So it's certainly not all bad. But a lot of times certain segments don't really add up or make sense. Like for example the segment about internet on Mars. It seemed a little bit disjointed and not the most coherent story. At these moments luckily Herzog comes in with his fantastic voice and entertaining narration and saves the movie from unraveling.
All in all I found this movie entertaining but not up to the standards of other Herzog movies.
Lo and Behold is in my opinion not one of the best efforts by Herzog. It's entertaining, it has Herzog's trademark narration which is great but somehow this film and the way Herzog approached the subject matter feel a little bit hollow. Like Herzog phoned it in.
There are really funny moments like those in the trailer but more often there are moments that feel a bit cheap. For example there is a family interviewed who where victim of being harassed on the internet. People where sending them gruesome pictures of their daughter who died in a car accident. This family is still pretty much damaged by these events. Instead of delving deeper in to why people do such awful things Herzog uses the family for laughs. Maybe this was not his intention but because their story was so minimal we got to see caricatures of who these people are really like. Which feels a bit lazy.
The same goes for some of the other people interviewed. Herzog does his best to get an poetic or thoughtful response but most of the time people just look at him like they don't understand the question. Of course for each of the moments there is a brilliant scene just around the corner. So it's certainly not all bad. But a lot of times certain segments don't really add up or make sense. Like for example the segment about internet on Mars. It seemed a little bit disjointed and not the most coherent story. At these moments luckily Herzog comes in with his fantastic voice and entertaining narration and saves the movie from unraveling.
All in all I found this movie entertaining but not up to the standards of other Herzog movies.