Les couloirs du temps: Les visiteurs II

Once again lots of fun with two inseparable medieval men traveling through of the time and space, including noisy action, humor with tongue-in-cheek and results to be an inferior follow-up, but amusing enough. Jean Reno as stubborn, proud medieval knight who wants to marry a noblewoman by any means and Christian Clavier as his dazed, crazy, airhead servant, both of whom playing a fully sympathetic and surrealist couple. In previous outing 12th century knight (Jean Reno) and his loyal servant (Christian Clavier) are transported to modern times by a spell from a sorcerer, so Godefroy contacts a senile wizard to give him a time travel potion so he can go back. Too bad the potion hurls knight and vassal into a lot of nutty adventures and crossing paths with their lookalike descendants. Nowadays, when the marriage between Godofredo de Miramonte and the heiress of the Frenegonda family is about to take place, they realize that the most important heirloom of the family has disappeared. Godfrey and his squire forgot the relics when they previously traveled to the 20th century thanks to the magic potion. They return and attempt to enlist the aid of their descendents to try to find the jewels and after a way to return home, but things go wrong. Ils reviennent! They will have to face the technological changes that the world has undergone !. Try to go back in time, only one thing will stand in their way, the 20th century !. They Weren't Born Yesterday! They Came. They Saw. They Wanna Go Back. They're not just from another time, they're from France!.

After the first installment, French director Jean-Marc Poiré takes charge of the sequel, a fun comedy starring the two main actors: Jean Reno and Christian Clavier. Both of them playing the knight and his servant, as well as their descendants of the future. Of course again they travel to the future to recover the jewels that Ginnette -Marie Anne Chazel- has stolen. Once again a time travel comedy with outrageous scenes, crazy things and lots of fun. A disconcerting and funny French film dealing with the same premise: a medieval nobleman and his squire are transported to contemporary times by a sorcerer. The trio formed by director Jean-Marie Poiré and actors Jean Reno and Christian Clavier had already performed ¨Operation Corner Beef¨ some years earlier. In 1998 they returned to the fray with their physical and gross humor, this time based on the contrast of two very different eras: the medieval and the contemporary. But in this series, ¨Les couloirs du temps: Les visiteurs II¨ (1998), the confusion, the uproar, mayhem, the multiple entanglements, and humorous entanglements increase, including excessive and overdone interpretations, especially from Christian Clavier, who due to his excesses results to be sometimes downright annoying. Surprisingly, the film became equally a huge hit both in France and internationally. A lightweight plot, but Reno and Clavier sink their teeth into the time-travel jokes and it turns out to be a fun and enjoyable experience, but only for hardcore fans of the original film. The picture is a fantasy comedy with action, giggles, tongue-in-cheek and is pretty entertained at times. And containing breathtaking special effects , adding a nice cinematography and lively musical score. The main amusement is to watch how our two protagonists react to a modern city replete with technology, and specifically things like automobiles, light switches and television, but they always manage to take it one step further, resulting in unexpected consequences. Jean Reno and Christian Clavier make a completely surrealist and delightful duo playing a geeky and stupid duo while trying to cope with the cultural and technological changes which makes the humor spontaneous and genuinely funny. Reno is the obstinate, brutish medieval lord who wants to marry a noblewoman by any means and Clavier as his dazed, nutty vassal and the film manages itself to be endearing as well as thoroughly crazy. They're well accompanied by a nice support cast, such as: Muriel Robin, Marie-Anne Chazel, Philippe Nahon, among others.

The motion picture obtained success in the box-office and in the video rentals. The first installment was¨The Visitors¨ (1993) starred by Jean Reno, Christian Clavier, Valerie Lemercier, set in 1123, Dark Ages, in 100 year War ,during the reign of 'Louis VI The Fat', something goes awry and our starring transported from the 12th century to the year 2000, where they meet some of the knight's family, and slowly learn what the future's like; becoming one of the most successful films in the entire history of French cinema. Evidently this required sequels that did not take long to arrive: ¨Les couloirs du temps: Les visiteurs II¨ (1998) by Jean-Marie Poiré with Christian Clavier, Jean Reno , Muriel Robin, Marie-Anne Chazel, Frank Olivier, but Valérie Lemercier did not reprise her role because she thought it was way too similar to the first film and she did not want to do the same thing twice. ¨Just Visiting¨ (2001) with Jean Reno, Christina Applegate, Christian Clavier, Matt Ross , Tara Reid, Bridgette Wilson, George Plimpton, Malcolm McDowell, directed by Jean-Marie Poiré who hated the movie, and mentioned that this was the reason why the third movie of the original French trilogy took so long to be made. And, finally, ¨Les visiteurs: La révolution¨ (2016) with Christian Clavier, Jean Reno, Franck Dubosc, Karin Viard, Sylvie Testud.

The Visiteurs 1 is one of my preferred, the sequel is one of the few movies I just cannot keep watching (one of others being Borat). Enough was said by the other members above, I want to add 'primitive'. The degeneration I suspect lies in somewhat similar to Wertmuller's Swept Away http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073817/ that is a masterpiece (but a local one, you have to know well Italy - or Mediterranean to appreciate it) vs Guy Ritchie's & Madonna's Swept Away http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291502/ I've seen few others (e.g. acting Banderas) remakes / sequels degeneration. Apart from personal tastes / what editor must not do, why do Americans remake already nice movies? I clearly felt this influence (and later read about Visiteurs 3) at the beginning and random jumping in Visitors II.

Les Visiteurs, the first movie about the medieval time travelers was actually funny. I like Jean Reno as an actor, but there was more. There were unexpected twists, funny situations and of course plain absurdness, that would remind you a little bit of Louis de Funes.

Now this sequel has the same characters, the same actors in great part and the same time traveling. The plot changes a little, since the characters now are supposed to be experienced time travelers. So they jump up and down in history, without paying any attention to the fact that it keeps getting absurder as you advance in the movie. The duke, Jean Reno, tries to keep the whole thing together with his playing, but his character has been emptied, so there's not a lot he can do to save the film.

Now the duke's slave/helper, he has really all the attention. The movie is merely about him and his being clumsy / annoying / stupid or whatever he was supposed to be. Fact is; this character tries to produce the laughter from the audience, but he does not succeed. It is as if someone was telling you a really very very bad joke, you already know, but he insists on telling that joke till the end, adding details, to make your suffering a little longer.

If you liked Les Visiteurs, do not spoil the taste in your mouth with the sequel. If you didn't like Les Visiteurs, you would never consider seeing the sequel. If you liked this sequel... well, I suppose you still need to see a lot of movies.

"The Visitors II" is a direct sequel to the first film and it continues the story in the same manner, but it doesn't bring anything new and fresh and just recycles the original. Jean Reno and Christian Clavier are expectedly good, and in all other aspects, the movie is decent but lame. I was bored.

5/10

Les Visiteurs (1993) is probably my favorite French movie; I've watched it loads of times and I think the entertainment value is through the roof. It's a movie that does nothing wrong, and I have awarded it a coveted "10" rating.

It was only a month ago that I learned of the existence of the somewhat low-profile 1998 sequel, Couloirs du Temp. I scrambled to find it, and now I have. I was afraid it might be terrible (as most of the few user comments here are certainly pretty hard on it), but to my delight it was pretty damn good. Of course not in league with the original, and several plot points were rather contrived, and a number of the gags went a bit out of hand, but overall I had a great time watching it. There were lots of laughs, lots of crazy situations, and lots of really good ideas. This sequel afforded us the chance to get to know Cousin Hube's side of the family, which I thought was brilliant. I think most of the inspiration and fun from the first movie were excellently maintained here, and I was impressed with the substance and complexity of the story. And I loved the way the soundtrack riffed the "Back To The Future" theme!

I almost want to rate this sequel an "8", but several factors contribute to its ending up a "7". Some of the plot developments weren't great, and the end in particular seemed to just complicate matters unnecessarily, while not being especially intriguing.

Probably the single biggest thing that was wrong with this movie was that Hube's fiancée was played by a different actress than in the first movie. This was a real shame, I thought.

Thus, a 7 out of 10 rating, but an entertaining and hilarious movie none the less! Absolutely recommended for fans of the original.