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Les Visiteurs
This brand of stupid humor is just right
by Marcy Dermansky


Last year, the 1993 French film "Les Visiteurs" was remade for American audiences. "Just Visiting" retained its principal French actors, Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, and added the unremarkable TV actress Christine Applegate. I didn't see it on principle because remaking French films is as bad an idea as turning movies into Broadway shows. The one small good thing that came out of the remake was that Miramax remembered the original and released it on DVD.

The premise of the film is simple. A medieval nobleman (Reno) and his squire (Clavier) take a bad potion and are sent into the future. Before they can get back home, Comte Godefroy de Montmirail and his squire Jacquart have to adapt to modern day France. These scenes are pure candy. Just about anything Christian Clavier does produces intense laughter, whether he is eating a sandwich with the plastic wrap, making animal noises into a telephone, or scrambling on the floor for left-over potato scraps. Better still is watching Reno and Clavier attempt to master modern bathing. This is good, old-fashioned slapstick humor, and it works without insulting your intelligence.

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In the end, the plot of "Les Visiteurs" is incidental as the supporting characters. It involves some younglings and a search for a dungeon. There are some special effects, burning rings, lightening and such. But this film is the sum of its stupid jokes and even upon second viewing, the jokes provided enormous delight.

DVD Features: None. Even the menu is simple.

 

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