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Just Visiting
**
Cinema Releases - February 8, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12. 88
minutes. Directed by Jean-Marie Poire. Written by Christian Claver, John
Hughes, Jean-Marie Poire; based on the 1993 screenplay "Les Visiteurs" by
Claver and Poire. Starring Jean Reno, Christian Claver, Christina Applegate,
Matt Ross, Bridgette Wilson, Tara Reid, Malcolm
McDowell.
I never saw "Les Visiteurs", which was a big hit
in France ten years ago, but those who did see it have told me that its humour
didn't translate into English with much success. The writer and director
of the 1993 picture, Christian Claver and Jean-Marie Poire, now give us
"Just Visiting", an English-language remake of their own work.
Perhaps it's a gesture to show they read their reviews.
The film is a fish-out-of-water comedy in which
Jean Reno plays a 12th Century French knight due to marry an English princess,
and Claver plays his slovenly manservant. One of Reno's enemies makes a public
embarrassment out of him, Reno and Claver find themselves sentenced to death,
and so a wizard played by Malcolm McDowell offers them the chance to go back
in time and prevent the disaster from happening. Of course the spell goes
wrong, and our protagonists find themselves catapulted into modern-day
Chicago.
Once in the year 2000, Reno and Claver find themselves
bathing in a toilet bowl, drinking perfume, ripping lights out of sockets,
getting carsick at 22mph and attacking a station wagon because they think
it's some kind of mechanised dragon. Most of these are typically gimmicky
fish-out-of-water gags, but you gotta love the pair's their reaction to the
Macarena, which involves erupting into semi-seizures.
There is a lot of exaggerated physical humour
in "Just Visiting" -- heads bumping into doorways, naturally, as well as
scenes such as the one in which Reno hallucinates, we cut to his point of
view, and everything seems to be turning into comic-book fruit. And yet the
movie isn't bouncy or light; its visuals look dark, grubby and cheap, making
us feel like we're watching a shoddy knock-off rather than an enthusiastic
remake. How the filmmakers suckered George Plimpton into putting in an
appearance, I'll never know.
"Just Visiting" is lame in a lot of ways, but
has its moments. I enjoyed the self-consciousness of the opening voice-over,
which introduces the villain with the line, "We can tell from his arched
brow that he is up to no noble purpose." The out-of-control arrogance of
the Reno character is also fun, as he screams things like "Silence, old woman!"
and "Kneel, vile peasant dog!", and makes like he believes them. Of course,
I don't quite understand why the movie features medieval Frenchmen communicating
in essentially modern English. And there's a part of me that can't help wondering
how well all this will translate back into French.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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