Die Besucher

Valerie Lemercier is outstanding in this farce in which the French, unusually, laugh at themselves. Jean Reno is as always a solid presence. But Lemercier is that most unusual of creatures, a female clown of genius. Her voice -A Montpellier accent- her walk and gestures as a BCBG aristocrat caught up in ridiculous adventures are perfect and endlessly funny. Lemercier is a woman of high intelligence and varied talents--always the best type for a clown

I watched this film late at night on Channel 4 while not being able to sleep, not knowing what on earth to expect. In fact it turned out to be a delightful film, which really made me laugh and was unashamedly silly while not being specifically aimed at kids. I ended up getting it on DVD and making my friend watch it: she also thought it was great. Neither of us can speak French and while we knew the subtitles probably weren't getting all of the humour across we still found it very enjoyable. Shame it had to be remade, although I never saw the English version I'm sure it wasn't as good. Recommended!

(P.S. We were also shown some of it in French class - the teacher and I giggled throughout and no one else in the class did! So maybe an acquired taste, but I loved it!)

I just finished watching the movie, and it was hilarious. I was laughing outloud at many many points. However, as my title indicated, it was the original french track that made me laugh. As is always the case for biliguals, one cant help but listen to the track and read the subtitles at the same time. Unfortunately, the subtitles do not do justice to the movie.

There are just too many semantic jokes that play off names and locations that could not be translated and make sense. That is why in so many reviews there seems to be a sharp contrast in views of whether or not this was a joke-a-minute movie.

The hollywood remake is awful, in fact,it never really made any sense and and the jokes were far and few in between. This one makes much more sense, and the meeting of people and their descendants makes for many more laughs.

The other factor is the acting and casting. This is just the nature of subtitled movies - one very rarely gets the fantastic acting and language ability of actors when reading the watcher is reading a yellow line, especially in comedy. Those who listen to the movie in its original french thikn the acting was fantastic, the voice casting (something i think is terribly important in acting [say, could Ashton Kutcher play Maximus from Gladiator, no, a high pitched voice could not do it]) is brilliant, but reading a crummy translation (and it was crummy) wont do the film justice.

8/10 for francophiles 6/10 for subtitle readers

I'm Chinese who reside in Sydney, Australia, and was fortunate to have a government operated television studio to show foreign programs in its original language with English subtitles.

More fortunate isn't because of the showing of the Hong Kong Kung-Fu films but the funniest film in anyone's language ‘Les Visiteurs'. As the English subtitles has already provided so much enjoyment to the film, I would assume most of the French would have laugh until they start coughing, to the extended of suffering from a sore throat.

OOOKAY!! – Which was frequently used in the film deliverers the impact to some the comic relief, but from my point of view, it is not a simple comedy to make. Some research was properly done to imagine someone who had lived in the middle ages, not forgetting their customs and habits from that era, then place them to the present day, you will end up witnessing similar chaos and disasters that is far worse than Mr. Bean.

My favorite is when they call the car a ‘chariot', also the subtitles is presented with Medieval English, I would imagine the same in French.

This is not doubt the funniest movie I have seen in my lifetime, the way they mess up the bathroom made me though it was stupid at first, but then I realize it actually make sense, as this is how they clean themselves back in the middle ages. This film beats my funniest English film, which is ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' directed by Yoda (i.e. Frank Oz)

When I saw the low rating on this movie, I knew I had to submit a vote because, in my opinion, it make discourage many others from watching one of the funniest movies ever. The plot is very original, a knight and his servant, who were supposed to return in the past only several hours to correct a fatal error in judgment, mistakenly get zapped to modern times. Imagine medieval eyes seeing asphalt and a horse less steel chariot (a car of course) rolling towards them. The men, used to witches and sorcerers, believe it is some sort of devil machine. When the car stops, they promptly attack it. A black man exits and the medievals yell: "A Saracen, a Saracen!". I saw this movie in its original language: French. If you can understand French, I very strongly recommend it. This is slapstick at its best. You will want to buy the movie and watch it over and over because you will always discover something else you missed. It is a jewel!