Humains

I saw this film at the BIFFF. A film festival in Brussel, the movie felt like a ripoff of the hills have eyes and the descent. The only thing that interested me was the science behind it all. That there special species evolved before the homo sapiens came. The acting is not terrible but nothing special either. The directors were make-up artists on the film A la interieur. It showed it was there first movie, because of the feeling you get you are watching a shameless copy of the above mentioned Hollywood films. The gore in the film is also not so great, after seeing the film Matyrs i know for a fact, the french film community can make something really frightening. If i can give you an advise watch it on DVD.

I saw this at the Chungmuro International Film Festival in Seoul in August 2009. I must say this movie deserves not a thumbs down, but the middle finger.

The way the plot just speeds up is so ridiculous and so many questions are left unanswered. It basically degenerates into a killing fest toward the end and the ending itself is great in that the movie is finally over.

What the hell were they thinking of when they made this movie? What message about Neandrathals did the makers want to send? What a waste of my life watching this stupid film.

I strongly dislike when people try to make a statement by rating any movie they didn't like a 1 and calling it "the worse movie of all time". I must still admit that I couldn't find any reason not to rate the movie "Humains" at the lowest end of the scale. Directors Jacques-Olivier Molon and Pierre-Olivier Thevenin show a lack of experience and, much more alarming, any sense of vision, storytelling or purpose in what is an extremely boring movie.

I'll scratch the barrel and find a few positives first:

-Some of the wilderness locations, while awfully shot, are beautiful. -The basic premise of surviving prehistoric beings was interesting and holds potential.

Everything else is pretty much crap. The bunch of actors on display here play two- dimensional characters unconvincingly. The script is goddamn awful and will make anyone cringe. Nothing is lifelike (very disappointing since this is usually the strong suit of French cinema). The editing is pure crap and the amateurish film score is certainly the worse I have heard in recent years.

It seems the directors wanted to shoot a classic horror story of a group of stranded survivors facing an intelligent enemy. We've seen mutants, monsters, aliens, thugs.... this time we get a new variation with some sort of weird-looking cavemen that look more like caricatures in a children movie than anything else.

If you look at the credits of both directors, you'll see they are special effects make-up specialists. One can easily guess it was a dream for them to direct a movie that would also require their skills. I can't say I find anything there very impressive but it is better than the digital effects, which are laughable.

What really amazes me is that four (FOUR!) writers are credited for writing this snooze-fest. With two directors and four more writers, you would think there would be enough creative power to come up with something better in a single evening of brainstorming. You would also think such a group would peer-review each other, challenge themselves to something less ridiculous.

I doubt any producer will finance these two directors anytime soon after seeing the garbage that is "Humains".

A team of researches travel to the Swiss Alps to investigate a scientific discovery on human evolution. However the trip soon turns into a deadly fight for survival when the team crash into a gully and find themselves falling prey to someone, something or somekind!

Now I am not prepared to bash this film as much as a lot of people out there will. Yes, as far as production is concerned, this film is lacking. Some tidying up of loose editing and some brushing up on the acting, would have made the film a lot better, but considering the budget, I was prepared to overlook that. Considering that some of the crew worked on the brilliant "Inside" I expected this one to be a nasty little piece. However it was extremely tame in comparison. Having said that, looking past the obvious faults, I actually thought it had some purpose, as there were one or two scenes with genuine suspense and the ending, which I wont give away, was quite a pleasant surprise as well. Once again, Phillipe Nahon was not utilised to full capacity in this one and I thought it was a waste of talent, however he lit up the screen, like he always does, for the run time that he appeared in. Some of the costume designs for the cavemen, were quite good and some were quite shoddy. It is in no way a great film, but you could do a lot worse. Go into it with limited expectation and you never know ... you could find yourself enjoying it.

I watched this movie because I'm learning French, and because I am pathetically in love with Sara Forestier after watching 'Le Nom de Gens'.

Unfortunately, this film is bobbins. Total bobbins. It's one of those movies that makes you wonder, at what point did ANYONE think this was a good idea?

If you wish to experience how bad this movie is, simply imagine the worst episode of the X Files possible. Then have someone kick you in the balls.

Despite this movie's suckiness, I'm still in love with Sara Forestier. And I still think that Dominique Pinon has a brilliant face. I want to make a movie in which Dominique Pinon and Toby Jones play gay lovers.