Rating: 
Summary: A great movie and artistic milestone
Review: I am not usually a fan of subtitled films. I like my staple Hollywood productions. But a friend dragged me out to see the screening of some foreign movie from Italy, of all places. As it was starting, I'm thinking to myself 'This is going to be boring!' While I'm trying to think of an excuse to get out of theatre though, I start really watching the movie. It has an innocent, predictable, but very much adorable sense of humour. The main character (his name escapes me at the moment), was brilliantly cast. As we move through sweet times to bitter ones, his enduring love of life, his intelligence and wit provide an entertaining lesson about life, death and war. The very un-Hollwood ending suprised me and still has me thinking about how fragile we all are.
Rating: 
Summary: no surprises
Review: I have seen both the Italian version & the English version & in my view, it's wise to go for the original version. Even though nothing is lost in understanding the content of the movie via English, & that the English is spoken in Italian fashion, nothing beat the original. The movie holds no surprises. Simply seat back & "enjoy" the movie. I reckon "enjoy" is not a wise word to use considering that we are watching a movie about life in the concentration camp. Benigni is pure magic & I don't think anyone would have the weight as he is to carry the movie. The message of the movie is simple, the love of family surpasses everything in this world. I still think that "Life is Beautiful" is a one man show whereas "Cinema Paradiso" to date still remains one of my favourite Italian movie. Having said that, this is still a movie worth your while to watch.
Rating:
Summary: .
Review: Ok: if your heart is easily warmed, and you like really wacky, light-hearted, whimsical humor which "celebrates the human spirit" and such, this ought to go over well with you. For me it was kind of a mixed bag. A great deal of the humor struck me as incredibly dorky, requiring giant leaps in suspension of disbelief that I simply wasn't quite ready to take. I guess I felt like a lot of it -- first half in particular -- was trying much too hard to be carefree and magical. The only thing that kept me involved is the simple fact that I just kind of like Benigni himself, even though much of his humor fell flat on me. The sort of guy that tries *so* hard, you can't help but admire him a little for the sheer vivacity of his effort, even when the efforts themselves don't pay off. The second half, once the thematic ice gets thinner, helped save it for me. Some people felt that the movie was dealing with a sensitive topic a bit poorly at this point -- I'm not certain about that one way or another -- but if so, that's precisely what made it interesting to me. The humor is just as wacky but suddenly terse in relation to the tragic surroundings and the sensitive theme, and the effect is a bit uncanny. The whimsical feats of Benigni become more far-fetched than ever, but a few of them really do strike a powerful emotional chord. And the dark twist near the end left me reeling; somehow I didn't quite expect it, even though it was inevitable. The very end, with the good old USA busting onto the scene to save the day -- personifed by a handsome, ivory-smiled young soldier, no less -- would've left me a bit queasy under normal circumstances, but I was too busy still dealing with some of the rather unusual aesthetic and emotional responses the movie had triggered in me to bother about it much. I'm not sure whether to recommend it or not, when all is said and done, but it's certainly an interesting creation, and it certainly has its moments.
Rating:
Summary: SURPRISINGLY EFFECTIVE
Review: I do not like clowns, and the mere thought of a slapstick movie that uses the Holocaust as a background filled me with dread. Ten minutes into this film (which has two distinctive "halves") the romantic comedy between real-life lovers Benigni and the lovely, lovely Nicoletta Braschi was as good and as involving as any I have ever seen. As the film turns dark, the childlike optimism of Benigni's character, coupled with the absolutely beguiling - and heartbreaking - child will have you crying, laughing and clutching your throat in gasps of emotion. The movie's well-earned, and expected, finale sequence is hauntingly beautiful. Life Is Beautiful is beautiful, and the melancholy musical score serves it to perfection. Viva Benigni!
Rating:
Summary: It started so well...
Review: The first half of the movie is delightful. Very well acted, with great dialogue and splendid cinematography. Heart warming without being over-sentimental. In a word, well, beautiful.Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is filled with inconsistencies in plot, historical inaccuracies, and, sometimes poor judgment. Really too bad, it started so well...
Rating:
Summary: Simply amazing!
Review: What Roberto Benigni has accomplished with this movie, i.e., Life Is Beautiful, is what Spielberg did not with Shindlers List. Whilst one only sits through Schindlers List once, Life is beautifull is a movie one is compelled to watch over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: Life is what one makes of it.
Review: Roberto Benigni brillantly and passionatly portrays an Italian Jewish waiter and bookstore owner, who has a flair at solving life's many riddles, during the waning days of World War II in Europe. Combining Italian Realism with many elements of Classic Hollywood Cinema, Guido (Benigni) invites the viewer to find the beauty in each and every day of life, and to openly and assertively express and embrace love at every opportunity, because one never knows when and how that love will be tested, or physically torn from one's self. Guido approaches his ultimate test of his strength of love when he and his young son are forced into a concentration camp, and his wife, a non-Jew, chooses to join them. Guido uses his brilliant talent at solving riddles, and his deep understanding that through an unselfish love, life can be what you make of it. In this case, Guido solves the real life riddles of how to help his son survive, and how to help his wife retain hope in a situation that would leave most of us withdrawn into ourselves by dispair. He convinces his son that the "stay" in the concentration camp is a planned game for his birthday, and, even though the game is not much fun, the reward of playing, and winning, is receiving a real tank of his very own. Guido supports his wife by taking every unusual opportunity to communicate to her that he and their son are alive, and she can live one more day in hope that they all will be together again. Guido understands that life is most beautiful when love is put into juxtaposition with the ridiculousness of blind hatred fueled by fear. Another theme of this film is that one must be able to find something of beauty and value to love within one's self, and without one's self, in order to simply survive the most horrific riddles, or terrifying life conditions, that humans sometimes find themselves. Benigni does not make light of the overwhelming suffering and pain that was experienced by Jews in the concentration camps. In a special manner, he pays tribute to those who were able to survive -- by chance, will and/or inner faith in the belief that life is inherently beautiful -- the atrocities they witnessed inflicted upon others, knowing full well that these same atrocities could be dealt to them at any time. This is a remarkable and highly passionate film that is best experienced when reading subtitles, and becoming totally absorbed by the passion of the spoken Italian language in tandem with the expressive gestures and body language of the artists in the film. There are very few movies with the depth of themes that "Life is Beautiful" engenders.
Rating:
Summary: Feel this Fable
Review: A comedy set during the holocaust? I couldn't believe the audacity of the concept. I dragged my wife down to the local artsy theater to watch the subtitled version--and we both loved it! The romantic, almost slapstick comedy that opened the film made us fall in love with these characters even before we began to fear for their lives. The poignancy of the father's ability to protect his son from the horrors of the prison camp was powerful. His scene of interpreting the German guard's speech almost had me laughing on the floor, and the myopic insensitivity of the riddle-loving doctor had me seething. But only in a second viewing was I able to release the full gamut of emotions this movie called for. Each time I see the movie it's like looking deeper into a lake, detecting richer hues and waves of feeling. As stated during the opening scenes, this film is like a fable. If you can appreciate the childlike "simplicity" on the surface, you'll be washed away by the currents of truth that course through every scene.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST!
Review: When I first heard of this film, I couldn't believe that someone would make a film about the holocaust and make it funny as well. Guido should be Father of the Year(if not century) hands down. It takes a lot in ingenuity to pull off to your five year old son that there was a game in session and you earned points for staying out of sight and in the end, you get a tank. And, you know, the little fella kind of won that tank in the end. But at what a cost. I won't give away the whole thing here. I also fell in love listening to "The Tales of Hoffman". My only beef was when they were celebrating Dora's so called engagement party, and they had that Ethiopian bird.(Cause Italy conquered Ethiopia back at that time)I felt although it was in poor taste, it reflected the times. Other than that, it was a great movie and I highly recommend it. Another thing, Guido carrying his son back to their quarters after helping with that party was a haunting scene.
Rating:
Summary: You'll laugh, you'll cry
Review: I saw this film with no pretenses - I had heard nothing beforehand. What I got was the most entertaining movie I have ever seen. I was so emotionally inspired I couldn't cry until it had ended - and then I couldn't believe what I had seen. Watch this film - you will get an education you never imagined and entertainment you never expected.
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