Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: August 19, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
The PlaylistNick SchagerMay 31, 2016
Herzog’s latest proves a masterful inquiry into technological evolution. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAug 18, 2016
Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World is just the kind of percolating, wry probe we need into this fast-moving, digitally monopolizing age. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAaron HillisAug 17, 2016
Herzog smartly takes a broad, bird's-eye perspective of our early techno-evolution. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniAug 19, 2016
An elegant survey of the origins of the information revolution and a shrewd analysis of how the internet has reshaped the world. It's one of the director's best docs. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineChuck BowenAug 15, 2016
It routinely alternating between episodes that contrast exhilaration with exploitation and damnation. Read full review
83
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerJan 30, 2016
If Lo and Behold is more just a collection of interviews on a series of themes than a cohesive piece of storytelling, it’s still a fascinating endeavor into how the Internet went from personal to unimaginably broad and how it could either continue to expand or perhaps even return to that infant phase again. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyNov 3, 2016
It’s Herzog’s uncertainty as a tourist in the field that gives the film its enticing charge, as surely as his wanderings in the Antarctic, or gropings in the dark to find the world’s oldest cave paintings. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 18, 2016
Herzog’s latest, ostensibly about the internet, is divided into 10 sections, each taking on a blend of awe and uneasiness at a radically changed world that’s increasingly lived online. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 18, 2016
Mr. Herzog’s film may not be a model of organization, but I loved every meandering minute. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 30, 2016
Lo And Behold, Reveries Of The Connected World is a modestly profound and consistently fascinating musing. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin ChangJan 30, 2016
The virtual future may be now, but “Lo and Behold,” with its stimulating volley of insights and ideas, always feels persistently, defiantly human. Read full review
80
The GuardianLanre BakareJan 30, 2016
For those looking for a ride through our modern technological world, or indeed a preview of what is to come, this is it. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 31, 2016
As Lo and Behold anecdotally lays it out, in the blink of the eye of human history, this invention has become essential, and in another blink – a solar flare, or cyberwarfare – its failure could trigger a civilization’s collapse. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzAug 19, 2016
The mosaic arrangement of material ensures that no one subject can be covered in detail -- the sum total sometimes plays like a very good themed edition of "CBS News Sunday Morning" but with a wickedly funny narrator -- and a couple of segments, notably one about a rehab clinic for gaming addicts, feel intellectually undercooked. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesJohn HartlAug 18, 2016
The full title, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, is pure, over-the-top Herzog: simultaneously an embrace of fresh internet technology and an attempt to suggest a mythical dimension. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonAug 18, 2016
Herzog is not able to go into a lot of depth. That keeps Lo and Behold from greatness, but it is nonetheless compelling, because of the way Herzog organizes the material. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyAug 18, 2016
It’s like a collection of short stories — most dystopian, some not — trying to pass itself off as a novel. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 18, 2016
Thoughtful, searching and wonderfully moving in its wistful final moments, Lo and Behold may not be Herzog’s most artistically ambitious film, but it’s an intriguing, even important one nonetheless. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorAug 11, 2016
As Herzog spirals from the achievements and dangers of the Net to topics such as communication with space colonies or the likelihood that solar flares will reduce the world to flood and famine if they knock out all connectivity, it is hard to know how much of this futuristic stuff to believe. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 19, 2016
Herzog asks if one and all if they think “the Internet dreams of itself”? Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnJan 30, 2016
Herzog acolytes will find the usual dose of eccentric musings; others may find it alternately perplexing and thoughtful when not hijacked by Herzog's intrusive remarks. But one thing is certain: You've never seen the internet discussed like this. Read full review
75
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 30, 2016
As it stands today, Lo and Behold is an entertaining exploration into an ever-shifting discussion, but, with Herzog’s specific charms, it will no doubt be a significant time capsule — or ominous document of warning — in the years to come. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 22, 2016
Lo and Behold is, by virtue of its scope, one of Herzog’s more scattershot endeavors. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottAug 18, 2016
The internet is an elusive quarry. It’s a marvel and a menace, a banal fact of life and a force for incalculable change. But it’s also less the subject of this captivating, uneven film than an excuse for its director to add to his collection of memorable faces and voices. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJan 30, 2016
Herzog's quick visit to the front lines represents an appealing, scattershot, easily digestible progress report aimed at a general audience that's now becoming vaguely aware that we're all living at the beginning of some kind of new world that could be brave or extraordinarily homogeneous. Or both. Read full review
67
TheWrapSam AdamsAug 18, 2016
Many of Herzog’s recent documentaries have been produced under the aegis of TV channels, and “Lo and Behold” often feels like a miniseries compressed into feature form. Its segments broaden an understanding of the internet’s impact, but they don’t meaningfully interact with each other. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 17, 2016
Lo And Behold approaches the internet with the same mixture of wonder and dread that the director previously applied to pitiless nature, but the subject matter is inherently less cinematic. Read full review
60
CineVueBen NicholsonNov 3, 2016
For Herzog it is people that matter and he's just as fascinated by Elon Musk's gazing at the stars as those battering their keyboards or avoiding them altogether. Read full review
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