So much average

Crappy film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

For some reason (one can only presume his ego got the better of him) Bill Forsyth actually made a big-budget art-house film here. If that isn't an error of judgement sufficient to end a career, I don't know what is.It's hard to fathom how he thought it would be possible for such a film to be released commercially. And while the producers presumably forked out for it without actually studying the screenplay - somehow persuaded that they should all go to Morocco to shoot some scenes on a beach and some dunes - it boggles the mind how the director and the producers managed to remain so far out of alignment on their target market, right through to the film's completion.In any case, Warner Bros understandably couldn't market it to mainstream cinema audiences, and in a desperate attempt to salvage something, cut it severely and added a narrative voice-over to dumb it down. If anything, the surgery only made it worse. Not only has it lost its artistic integrity, it has a slapped-on narration - presumably in imitation of a bed-time story - that crops up at meaningful moments to let us know that it's a meaningful moment. The narration adds nothing, only patronises. Worse, it is incongruously done in strident tones and a raw, modern American accident. It's hard to think of a more botched attempt to salvage a film.It's not a difficult film, but it does require some indulgence. Certainly, mainstream cinema-going viewers will only be nonplussed at having to think about what they are watching, having to tease subtleties, ambiguities, and ironies from a series of slow moving, wistful, existential stories.Forsyth's original screenplay demanded even more indulgence, trying to extract depths of meaning out of every moment. This obsession at painting emotion is what really sinks the film - it's more literary than cinematic, and little of the attempt successfully translates to the screen. Thus, when Hector in the first story sees the boats coming in, he stands there hesitantly in full view of them and there is little sense of the absolute terror the screenplay he tells us he feels - mainly he comes across as simple-minded.There is plenty, though, to appeal to the intelligent viewer who likes to reflect on life. The historical scenarios (except for the last segment) are interesting choices - it is rare to be taken to those times and places - some of them fairly unique. The moral or practical challenges presented to Hector each time are never boring. We like him for being hapless and benign, and we come to care for his welfare. This is excellent and engaging - for the thinking viewer - and is all the better for the straightforward technique, without any of the manipulative technology-driven tricks of modern Hollywood.However, it's hardly an unsung masterpiece. No consistent theme emerges. Nothing really coheres into a whole. The stories needed to be much cleverer for it all to come together into a frisson of satisfaction at the end - nothing really does come together. Two of the stories have hopeful endings (if not entirely happy), the others have sad, wistful, or ambiguous endings. If there was significance in the ending of each, it was too subtle to grasp. By the last story we (might) realise that footwear seems to be a theme, though quite what the moral is there in terms of the human condition, is obscure. Other symbols, such as the windmill and the cross, if symbols they are, don't work at all, as almost everyone will miss them completely.Worse, Hector hardly stands for the whole human race, having evolved apparently into the fashionably-sensitive liberal, the banality of which is revealed in the last story, which serves up the biggest cliché of them all: father issues, presented here with dismal earnestness as Hector bonds with his estranged children. When Hector is told that his son only needs a hug to solve everything, and his early-teen daughter gives him a little lecture on meaningful moments, I'm not sure whether my howls were of excruciation, disbelief, or disappointment.

In one of his serious roles sans beard, Robin Williams stars in this somewhat confusing movie about a man portrayed in five different stories, always trying to find meaning in life...or something. Maybe the movie was trying to make a point about something, but I couldn't really tell. In a way, it almost seems like they made the movie for fun and just stacked the whole thing with a giant cast. Director Bill Forsyth, who had a very clear goal in making "Local Hero", seems somewhat confused himself here.I should identify that I didn't hate "Being Human". It's an interesting look at world history. It's just hard to get a grip on the movie. An OK way to pass time, but I wouldn't recommend making it your first choice. Also starring Theresa Russell, Robert Carlyle, John Turturro, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jonathan Hyde, Hector Elizondo, Ewan McGregor (in his debut) and William H. Macy.

This is one of those comfortable Sunday-afternoon-while-it's-raining films. It is one of Robin Williams more serious characters.A little moody in places, the film offers reflections on what it might have been like to live at other times, as a sort of social history (no being a king or queen or royalty). The main character plays his life issues out through time, from ancient Rome, a Viking raid, a 16th or 17th century continental vagrant, to the present. Love, life's tragedies, children, and home are all themes. There is a light-heartiness to the film, and it plays on the contemporary character's life as it unfolds. Robin Williams turns in a typically great performance.The themes and emotions all play in their times. Settings are as varied as the emotions. Sweet and sentimental, the movie captures and makes a statement about the human condition.

I've seen a lot of Robin Williams movies, but after this one, I must draw the line. "Being Human" may possibly be the worst movie I have ever seen. The concept is dangerous, edgy, over the top- a modern man's family struggle is paralleled by other struggles throughout the history of man in order to suggest that there is one story that sort of gets played over and over again, just in different ways. However, this movie falls short in execution; way short. In fact, other than that it has sort of an intriguing concept, it plain stinks. And that's not an exaggeration. Anyone that can sit through this two-hour bomb without passing the time by making fun of it either thinks too much or doesn't think at all. It makes me wonder if this is one of those stories that they came up with by putting 100 monkeys at 100 typewriters and seeing what they got. I think that's how they made West Side Story too, but don't quote me on that.My rating: Stinky