JUST VISITING A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Nothing like a large breath mint after a lavish dinner. However, the ones in Jean-Marie Poiré's time-traveling, fish-out-of-water comedy, JUST VISITING, taste a bit funny since just moments before they were deodorizing the water in the urinals in the men's room. Relying heavily on such bathroom humor, the movie is something of a crowd-pleaser, but I found it worth little more than some smiles.
A remake of the 1993 French film LES VISITEURS, JUST VISITING concerns a 12th century French nobleman, Count Thibault (Jean Reno), and his servant André (Christian Clavier), who are accidentally sent into the future by a wizard. "Lost in the corridors of time," they turn up in a Chicago museum in April of the year 2000.
In his strange, new world, Thibault is aided by museum curator Julia Malfete (Christina Applegate), who turns out to be 30 generations removed from the woman, Rosaline (Applegate), whom he was about to marry back at his old castle. The story's on-going joke is that Julia doesn't realize that he is from the past, even if he does talk, act, dress and smell very strange.
The movie's shtick is one long series of physical comedy gags, the best of which are in the trailers. When Thibault and André first see a car, they attack it with a vengeance, since they figure it must be a hideous, fire-breathing dragon. They use their swords to smash it to pieces, starting with the spearing of the radiator.
When Thibault and André see a toilet, they wash their faces in it and use the long white towels beside it to dry off. A $2,000 magnum of Channel #5 perfume is used for drinking and then bathing. And the automatic icemaker in the kitchen causes a classic Vaudevillian falling down routine.
Rather than going on with the slapstick examples like the freeing of the "Family Feud" figures "trapped" in the TV set, let me end with the one serious note in the movie. It stands foursquare against slavery. Makes you want to go straight home and emancipate all of your servants.
JUST VISITING runs 1:28. It is rated PG-13 for violence and crude humor and would be acceptable for kids about 5 and up.
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