“Harry and the Hendersons” is a family comedy that should be really endearing but instead it comes across as really lousy. To its credit, I guess it is hard to write a movie on this subject matter without seeming more stupid than anything else.

In “Harry and the Hendersons”, the regular, all-American Henderson family go on a short holiday in the countryside but on their way home hit something. It turns out to be none other than the legendary Bigfoot (Kevin Peter Hall “Predator”), who for some reason they decide to call him ‘Harry’; I would have gone for ‘Predator’ but that’s because I’m an audience member with some background knowledge and not a character in this movie. They try and bring him into their home and what follows isn’t all too amusing not heart-warming.

John Lithgow (“Cliffhanger”) leads the Henderson family and he’s a good actor, who has proven his comedic capabilities with the tv show “3rd Rock from the Sun” but the material here doesn’t remotely try to be funny. Kevin Peter Hall must have a thing for wearing outfits that completely cover him, the outfit here looks well-designed but the facial expressions look more bizarre as opposed to funny or whatever the filmmakers should have been going for. David Suchet (“Executive Decision”) rather hilariously plays a top-notch hunter; he’s only funny because he’s such a good actor doing work that is clearly beneath him.

“Harry and the Hendersons” has some good casting choices but ultimately is very underwhelming. All the stuff to get this type of film to work is there but only in blueprint form and no expansion has been done in order to make it work, meaning it suffers the same fate as movies like “Brewster’s Millions” and “The Great Outdoors”. This movie could have been successful if it had the likes of John Hughes (“Coming to America”) and Harold Ramis (“Groundhog Day”) pulling the strings.