Review of Les Visiteurs & Les Visiteurs 2

Introduction

Not a huge French film buff it must be said. In fact prior to Les Visiteurs, I think the only other French film I`ve seen and subsequently own is Nikita. Still I was at least aware of this film, not least because I knew of the flop US version called Just Visiting. I had a quick sneak on iMDB when seeing this film on the stone tablet despatched from Reviewer Towers and found that a vast number of people found Les Visiteurs to be the funniest French film ever. Fair enough, let`s give it a whirl and see…

Synopsis time. Godefroy de Papincourt (Jean Reno), Comte de Montmirail, is rewarded with the hand in marriage of Frénégonde de Pouille (Valérie Lemercier) for saving the King`s life while he has a secret affair with some English Royal floozy. Unfortunately, on his way to meet up with is betrothed, Godefroy takes a detour into the enchanted woods and captures a local witch. Slightly hacked off with being stuck in a cage, the witch uses extraordinary lengths to spike Godefroy`s water and thus the errant knight goes on a trip he didn`t quite expect. Hallucinating badly, Godefroy mistakes Frénégonde`s dad for a bear and shoots an arrow into his head.

Unsurprisingly, this doesn`t go down too well with his bride-to-be, who goes into mourning and decides to become a nun. Devastated, Godefroy and his faithful but imbecilic servant Jacquouille la Fripouille (Christain Clavier) go off to visit the local friendly wizard Eusebius (Pierre Vial). The man of spells convinces Godefroy to take a potion that will transport Godefroy back to just before the fateful incident so that he can divert the path of the arrow. Of course being a faithful servant, Jacquouille (or Jacquasse to just about everyone else, get it?) is forced into the reluctant job of official taster. Both disappear into time, but an error has been made and instead of going backwards in time, the duo end up in mid-90`s France.

Cue lots of comic misunderstandings, frantic slapstick mayhem and confusion with descendants of both Godefroy and Jacquouille and their families as modern day descendant Béatrice de Montmirail (Valérie Lemercier) is oddly enough a dead ringer for Godefroy`s lost love. Not to mention the fact that gross Jacquouille`s descendant is the straight laced nouveau riche owner of the hotel based in the remains of the chateau that used to be Godefroy`s castle (or something…).

Video

Picture is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the picture is in good condition and the sets/locations all look well designed, although some of the mid-90`s fashion looks terribly dated now. On the big plus side though, we get to watch Valérie Lemercier, so that offsets the awful beige suits, massive shoulder pads and the hideous Cyndi Lauper-esque outfit worn by Marie-Anne Chazel.

Audio

Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack in French with imbedded subtitles. It`s the best way to watch a film like this, so I`m quite pleased there isn`t a dubbed English soundtrack. On the other hand it`s a shame that wider audiences weren`t catered to with better subtitling options though.

Features

Only the one, but quite a substantial one at that on the second disc:

Les Visiteurs 2: The Corridors of Time

I was going to put a plot synopsis in here but decided against it as it would spoil things too much for anyone who hasn`t seen the first one.

Ooh, that`s not quite right as I just found a trailer on the first disc for Les Visiteurs.

Conclusion

This film is a bit of an oddity. I found myself laughing despite not enjoying it as much as I probably should have done. Slapstick is not one of my favourite comedy genres and this is slapstick heaven, with Christian Clavier in his element as a much more stupid version of Tony Robinson`s Baldrick. No cunning plans, just a lot of visually disgusting but funny gags (and I mean a lot and most of them are the same). Jean Reno, as the aristocrat of old, looks on fairly aloofly but is caught up in some of the same gags. What makes this film though, in my view, is the portrayal of Béatrice by Valérie Lemercier. Without her, this film wouldn`t have been anywhere near as good (and Les Visiteurs 2 suffers for her absence despite her place being taken by another good actress Muriel Robin).

Where this film falls down for me is the frantic pace of the slapstick and the rather annoying presence of Jean-Pierre (Christian Bujeau). The husband of Béatrice, Jean-Pierre is a dentist and shouts rather a lot in exasperation at the antics of the medieval duo. It just got a bit annoying for me after a while. Talking of annoying, I really hated the character Ginette la clocharde (Marie-Anne Chazel), maybe it`s a French thing but I found the role of French bag lady who speaks very fast and abruptly to be more annoying than anything else in this film put together. That said, all the things that annoyed me in this film got turned up to 11 in the sequel, where the slapstick turns into an extreme farce.

Some of the set pieces are genuinely laugh out loud funny, but as a whole I`d say that this film is an acquired taste. The concept is good but the application a little sketchy in places. The same is true of the sequel which effectively carries on where Les Visiteurs finished (and quite literally from the look and feel of things), but that one just step things up a couple of notches so if you don`t like the first, you`ll hate the second.

This may well be the funniest French film ever, but hardly the funniest film ever…