Die Besucher

Les Visiteurs is a brilliant film. It makes me want to learn French so that I could enjoy the movie even more! Although the jokes are coarse, they are used correctly, WITHOUT fake laugh tracks in the background. The actors portray the characters so well I could almost believe it! Well, almost believe it. In any case, this film will bring on the giggles and laughter. It is not easily forgotten.

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

Looking at some of the other comments, not everyone is in agreement here, but I have really liked "Les Visiteurs". The original 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.

For us that do not understand French, they have done a tremendous job with the English subtitles (translating a kind of 'medieval' French into a comparable type of old English – modern swearwords included). In fact, the job is so well done, 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.

This is meant to be slapstick and the story is a total farce, so it's hard to see why some viewers apparently expected more. 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.

The movie is a blast!

I admit I haven't seen more than probably 40 or 50 "foreign" films, but of those, this is still the funniest one I have watched. The major problem I had with it was that the dialog (and the humorous lines) came so fast I barely had time to read the subtitles. It gets a little tiring after awhile trying to keep up with the reading and viewing at the same time, at that pace.

As with all comedies, you get smart and stupid scenes. You get more stupid when you have more slapstick, but you also have more laugh-out-loud moments. Such is the case here, as Jean Reno and Christian Clavier portray clownish 11th-century men who suddenly find themselves in modern-day France. Time-travel films almost always are fascinating, whether it's sci-fi or comedy.

Most of the jokes center around the guys trying to figure out today's modern conveniences, such as toilets, and the problems they have trying to figure them out. Also, there are big problems with the men's relatives, who are trying to figure out who these strange-acting guys are all about!

As for family viewing: not suitable. There is no sex and no nudity, but there is rough language which is why it's rated "R."

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!)