Les bronzés 3: amis pour la vie

Unless that's the only movie you can watch. I have a lot of respect for those actors who made me laugh a lot in the past, I'm pretty sure they had a lot of fun together. But putting a lot of people having success in comedies do not guarantee to spend a good moment. They should have thought twice before to do it, because honestly it's pretty bad.

The third opus of the forever-flawed "French Fried Vacation" trilogy has a subtitle: it is "Friends Forever" well I suppose that doesn't include the audience. Am I funny? No, I just put myself on the film's level. It is not just bad but embarrassingly bad. It's the kind of movies that don't just make you notice how bad they are, but make you angry, because it ruined a legacy.

Now, whenever you'd have to say how great the first one in the African resort and the second in the mountains were great, you'd have to add that the third one was terrible. The same thing happened a few years ago with that dreadful "Visitors" sequel, the kind of experience where you leave the film thinking "Is there such a shortage of good writers that this is the best they could come up with?" And speaking of "Visitors", it is interesting because five years had passed till they made the sequel but given how spectacularly awful it was, you would have thought it was two decades.

"French Fried Vacation 3" was made 27 years after: on that level, it felt like an eternity, because you'd better believe only the cruel passing of time can make you go from fun, wit and modern relevance to plain mediocrity. It is sad, sad to see characters that defined the new face of French comedy being such hacks. They used to play relatively unlikable persons, but they did it with fun, warmth and a special ingredient that always earned our empathy, in the third, they're unlikable people played in an unlikable way. The same characters are here, they have money, problems but the heart isn't in it.

The handsome womanizer and goofy loser Popeye (Thierry Lhermitte) lost its touch with the ladies but being the tallest can pass as "good looks". The greatest blasphemy was when the ultimate loser Jean-Claude Dus (Michel Blanc) turns to a cheerful successful businessman specialized in wigs and the boyfriend of Gigi (Marie-Anne Chazel) who's just had breast implants. She's given so little plot substance that I reconsidered the breast thing as the perfect distraction from her dullness. Bernard and Nathalie, the couple of average Joes played by Gérard Jugnot and Josiane Balaso are the same: as dysfunctional as ever, but these times, they don't have youth as an excuse, they immediately get on our nerves. The same with divorced Jerome (Christian Clavier) wandering all through the film, Clavier is the most successful French comedian but he's not very comfortable as "one of six" anymore.

The rest of the cast are here: Martin Lamotte, Dominique Lavanant and Bruno Moynot, but you can take any ten minutes from the first two movies and they'll provide more genuine laughs than the whole of "Friends Forever". The film is a pointless series of "things happening for the sake of a gag". Worse, there's a degree of self-consciousness that makes it even more irritating. It's like they knew this was going to be a hit and the actors tried to make an artificial cult classic out of that certitude, by injecting some one-liners that feel totally artificial. Sometimes, you can almost hear a beat after a line, as if it's telling you that it's a joke, and it is supposed to make you laugh. Some lines are delivered with the sole intent of entering the half of fame of classic French quotes in the same vein that "I will conclude". But it lamentably fails.

The only thing the film got right is that it was going to be a commercial success, but what a splendid irony that one of the box-office champs of the last decade, garnering thrice more viewers than the first two put together was instantly disliked by everyone. It is a commercial success and a critical fail, people of all generations love "French Fried Vacation", whether they watched it in the theaters or grew up with and could recite them line by line, so they heightened their expectations when they saw that all the actors (even the director Patrice Leconte) were back on the road. If anything, the film worked because of the first two, but it didn't have the decency to return the compliment by respecting their "spirit". But could it really?

I said in previous reviews that the real trilogy ended with "Santa Claus is a Bastard", and one can even see a tetralogy with "Papy Fait de la Résistance". The Splendid Troop refreshed the air of French cinema in the 70's by making vulgar crass comedies with endearing and likable schmucks or losers, people the population could relate to. The torch was passed between the stage theater heritage of Bourvil and Fernandel and the aging Louis de Funès to the younger generation. Old school movies were getting lamer, a bit childish although not deprived of charm but the baby boomers gave French comedy a flavor that defined the 80's and 90's. And maybe what "Friends Forever" says is that they're now in the same position than those they dethroned, they lost their touch.

Each time defined a new 'vis comica'. And obviously, our favorite vacationers lost the touch with their era and didn't make enough an impact in that film. There were a few good scenes here and there but they never left an enduring impression, Bernard's son announces his homosexuality and then disappears, his father's reaction is hilarious until it turns into a ridiculous visual stroke. When a film must resort to slapstick and cheap gags involving dead dogs, big breasts, and botox lips exploding in a plane, you know this is not good.

But it is quite fitting that the film deals with plastic surgery, it feels like they really implanted what they thought would be good gags and funny jokes, but it really feels like botched surgery. It is a film of artificial and plastic ugliness

This comment does not contain spoilers.

So, 3rd installment of the holidays of the "Bronzés" (the "sun tanned" in French). Boy, am I glad I did not buy the DVD. And do I feel sorry for the friend who did.

Anyway, 27 years after the previous 2 movies (Les Bronzés, 1978, tt0077276 on IMDb and Les Bronzés font du ski, 1979, tt0078907 on IMDb, both excellent comedies), the characters all get back together again. They are the same, played by the same actors. The comedy, unfortunately, is not the same.

The first 2 movies relied on well too known situations to anyone in France (or in Europe) going on holiday. If you have been on holiday skiing or to the seaside, you have LIVED what the previous 2 movies depicted. They both were very, very good at pointing all these defects we have, all these little things that can go wrong, all these little stupid reactions you have because you just can't help it. And they felt so true. The characters were mean, greedy, selfish, jealous, stupid, you name it. But somehow, they were endearing, you felt like you knew them, because you had gone through the same. Everything felt so familiar.

All this is exactly what all of us, who had seen the first 2 and were waiting for the 3rd one, were expecting.

And all this, is precisely what this 3rd movie is not. This movie has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with me, nothing to do with your holidays and how they can look or feel like. This movie mostly relies on obvious, exaggerated jokes. If you see some mildly comic effect at the beginning, you know it will be repeated over and over beyond the limits of your patience. You might come to identify with some of the characters: when they don't want to hear about one of their "friend's" problem, you will think, just like them, "just leave us alone and shut up, I don't want to hear about it anymore!!!"

About half way through it (well I was hoping a good 90 minutes had passed already and that the end was near, but my watch, the traitor, told me there was still quite a lot to bear), after so much screaming and so much of the same over and over again, I just wished it would finish QUICK !!!

Don't waste your time nor your good memories of the old films. No, seriously. Don't.

With my blonde we watched, les Bronzes 1 and 2, we had a lot of fun, and for myself a bit of nostalgia, so we went to see les bronzes 3 last night.

At the beginning, we were happy to see such iconic characters, but after a third of the movie, we saw it was pointless.

The plot line is very mediocre, the character have not evolved, they truly lost the magic touch of their youth.

I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone even on DVD.

Craps. And, i'm French, i'm fan of the early splendid, it's not a question of cultural divide between french and other country, this movie is pure crap, written by talented people, but without inspiration.

My close relatives and friends know that Patrice Leconte has a prominent place in my straitjacket of favorite French filmmakers. I must profess that treasures like "Tandem" (1987), "le Mari De la Coiffeuse" (1990) or "l'Homme Du Train" (2002) were pure cinematographic delights in my eyes. But in counterpart, I don't go much for the "Bronzés" saga which is supposed to be a satirical mirror of the average Frenchman. I have always deemed it as vulgar, crass and it's really a shame that in France, for many French viewers, the name of Patrice Leconte remains associated with this cult series (for those who love it). There's so much to discover beyond it like the three gems aforementioned.

The first two chapters were shot in 1978 and in 1979. After that, a big proportion of viewers expected another installment. And so, Patrice Leconte and his gang of well-known French actors agreed to make a third episode. Of course, the whole crew was elated at the idea to work all together again like the good old days and I can understand(while not sharing it) the enthusiasm of many fans. "Les Bronzés 3: Amis pour la vie" was perhaps the most anticipated film of 2006.

I haven't got fond memories of the first two episodes and I won't warm to the series with this third one. My estimation about it is a juxtaposition of sketches hardly dovetailed without a true unifying thread. In the middle of the film, comes a two-bit subplot whose main function is filler. Some old clichés have been seen so many time before like Bernard Morin's son who announces to his father that he's gay and of course, his father isn't prepared to accept this. Most comical effects often fall flat and are rarely efficient.

Even Patrice Leconte's input in the project is absent and he doesn't seem to care about it. The actors give us their little acts but that's all. All in all, many fans of the first two films will be delighted to see these reunions and won't be hampered by the fact that the film isn't a model of cinematographic writing and this film by Patrice Leconte and his men is for them. But if some of them are curious to see what there is beyond this new trilogy (unless a fourth episode is on the way) in Leconte's filmography, I strongly advise them to watch the works I quoted in my first paragraph.