I highly recommend paying extra for the Third Dimension, as this is one of the few films where its use is more than a marketing gimmick. By conveying the feeling of space in the cave and the expressive contour of the walls themselves - which play such an important part in the artists' designs - you experience a heightened, and deeply moving sense of what makes Chauvet such an extraordinary space. Seeing that we're not likely to ever get inside ourselves, Herzog's done us a favor by using the technology in such an appropriate, artful way.

As a long time Herzog fan my biggest criticism of the film is his overbearing use of music during the sequences in the cave. It would've been one thing if it were some sparse Popol Vuh mantra ala Nosferatu, but he's into choral music now (see the underwater sequences of Encounters at the End of the World). It's a rare case of Herzog being a bit tone-deaf and insensitive to the nature of his own images, thus undercutting his own grand design. His attempt to editorialize the power and mystery of the place only detracts from the experience of total immersion he otherwise succeeds in creating. I wish he'd just scored the scene with the profound silence of the cave itself.