The Visitors
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Movie Reviews of The Visitors
Movie Review: Jean Reno is great!
Summary: 3 Stars
Ever since I saw "The Professional" I've been impressed by Jean Reno and have been waiting to see more of his work. I just saw on cable the film "Just Visiting", the english remake of this French version, I got many laughs out of the film and Christina Applegate is always easy on the eyes. So I wanted to see the original. The Visitors, is a good movie, no doubt about it, but, I prefered the english remake. The DVD is very limited without any real extra features. Great for french students, because you can turn off the english subtitles. I don't regret the purchase but, it seems a bit pricey for what you get.
Movie Review: Festive movie.
Summary: 3 Stars
OK, OK, it's a French movie with subtitles. But it's really very funny. Knight & lackey get wizarded to the present, both meet their descendants. Of course, no one believes they are who they say they are. Medieval customs and morals values confront modern French customs and moral values. Hilarity ensues.
Some of the costumes, armor, etc, are off by about 300 years, but the movie's a lark, so who cares.
Movie Review: Quirky Fun
Summary: 3 Stars
Good French comedy, if you like French comedy. Silly, and it asks a bit much of the audience in terms of patience and suspension of you know what, but fun.Movie Review: Terrific comic acting can't redeem unfunny time-travel farce
Summary: 2 Stars
Comedy is a notoriously xenophobic traveller - happiest at home; always moaning about the people and conveniences abroad. So whereas a squire and his vassal can cross a millenium in time, the jokes and broad humour stay stubbornly rooted in France, leaving foreigners bemused at how 'The Visitors' so tickles the national funny bone. I guess it's the same with the 'Carry On' films: hilarious for us (in the British Isles), meaningless to everyone else. It's not just a case of knowing about French history or culture, but about being attuned to a particular comic tradition and its modes (in this case Parisian street theatre and cafe comedy) - if you don't understand them, how are you going to laugh at them?'The Visitors' is basically a Gallic variation on the old Rip Van Winkle yarn, with a character transplanted from his age, attitudes and manners, and plonked into our own. Seen through an alien's eyes, the everyday world we take for granted becomes fresh and arguably ridiculous. The fact that this alien is a relative, one of 'us', makes the gap between his age and ours more pointed. So although the medieval realm Jean Reno's knight bestrides is muddy, violent, war-mongering, and socially unjust, it allows for a nobility, honesty, friendship and bravery that has no place in our world. When Reno in 1993 takes a bath in his underclothes, dumping thousands of francs worth of salts and ointments, it is we who look silly, not him, with our pointless waste, and obsessive preference for clean bodies over clean souls. Our world may be more democratic, the peasants may be allowed take over the castle, the French Revolution may have smashed the ancien regime, but a rigid social structure remains in place, there is still a hierarchy of social dependence in which some people get to give orders and others have to take them.
'Visitors' makes a case for the continuity of history, the presence of the past in a present that would deny or break away from it - the hidden dungeon in the converted hotel is a kind of unconscious suppressed by the national ego. Typically, women are at the root of social disruption - it is a witch who causes Reno and Clavier to be hurtled through time; it is the tramp Lady Ginette who encourages Clavier to overturn his social position. Medieval military violence translates into modern police brutality.
The most disappointing thing about 'Visitors' is the simplistic level of the comic material, the repeated resort to the obvious. There is none of the clash of or inventive delight in linguistic registers you find in Raymond Queneau's 'The Blue Flowers', another story about a medieval knight rampaging through history towards the present. It's a real shame, because the actors are delightful - Reno's mud-spattered aristocracy never becomes foolish; Clavier in a double role alternates gross-out earthiness with an absurd sophistication; Valerie Lemercier is the uptight snob who learns to see new possibilities; and Christian Bujeau as her exasperated husband is a rare example of the straight man getting all the laughs.
Movie Review: French Version Much Better
Summary: 2 Stars
The original movie "Les Visiteurs" is so good, its a pity they had to spoil with the Americanized version - "Just Visiting" - which is at best an insult on the intelligence of the American viewing public.Although the original movie is in French with English subtitles, they have done a tremendous job with the subtitles - translating a kind of "medieval" French into a comparable type of old English (modern swearwords included). In fact, the job is done so well that we had a lot of laughs just by comparing the film's verbal antics to the translation. Even though I do not speak French myself, it is quite clear that a lot of effort had gone into this. Sometimes the conversations are fast and furious, so it's worthwhile to see the movie a second time. Even on the second pass, there was a lot to laugh at.
The original was meant to be slapstick and the story is a total farce, but I thought it was well done, and very well executed. Even though this whole thing is intended as a joke, the reactions of the medieval guys are quite believable. Both versions star Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, but unfortunately that is not enough to save "Just Visiting", which I can at best award two stars. In contrast, the original effort is a blast and worth at least 4 stars.
If you can, try to obtain the French version. It's worth the trouble!