I was kinda wondering what this one was gonna be like going in. Werner Herzog is an interesting fellow. Recently read his Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir, and yeah, he’s been through a lot of crazy shit over his lifetime. By chance and by choice. Plus he helped Joaquin Phoenix from a crashed car that might have exploded because, who Else? The dude … just kinda operates on a different level. This here is his “Science Fiction Fantasy” and yeah, it’s a different level.
A guy looking a lot like Brad Dourif is narrator, self-confessed alien, and just plain sucky. He even admits it. His race spent so much time getting here, they seemed to venture through the Caligula and inbreeding stages during the millenniums of travel. But here we get to see our world through his eyes, just as we attempt to leave it.
This isn’t so much a fictional movie as it is a unique documentary kind of thingamajig, using archival footage of some bits through history but mainly some NASA footage shot during one of their missions and some weird stuff by Icicle McSwimmerton. It’s cool footage, so Herzog decided to weave it into some Space Poetry here. Sure, there’s potential Space Madness and Astral Jellyfish, and it comes off a bit hippy-ish in tone. But it’s more than that, a narrative about string theory, space tubes and shopping malls. It’s an experience where a bowl may be better than a beer, just sayin. And all set to some crazy music.
