Cinema bottoms out in `Just Visiting'
By MARIO BIRD
Scene Movie Critic
Ask any slack-jawed yokel's opinion of a particular movie, and he'll most likely tell you it was one of two things: good or bad. Movies that are universally acclaimed as "good," such as "Toy Story" or "Schindler's List," usually generate copious revenue and popular appeal for the stars and director.
Surprisingly, the same is true for universally "bad" movies, as any fan of the "Evil Dead" series would proudly testify. Though "good" and "bad" are undoubtedly subjective, occasionally a film will transcend that subjectivity and become entrenched in the public consciousness as an objective exemplar of achievement (or delinquency).
"Just Visiting" transcends bad, good and everything in between, coming to rest as the archetype of 21st century film mediocrity, a title that thousands of subsequent movies will undoubtedly strive to wrest away from this half-baked spectacle.
Appropriately, the television preview encapsulates the plot in 30 seconds: a 12th-century knight and his jester-slave are mistakenly sent into the future, where they shock, stupefy and inevitably enamour two beautiful, young, blond women.
Adding to hackneyed atmosphere is the womanizing, money-grubbing fiancé who projects a clean-cut image in order to fleece his innocent wife's bank account.
The film is a Hollywood Pictures/Gaumont remake of the original 1993 French release, and reprises Jean Reno ("Mission: Impossible") and Christian Clavier (various French films) as the Count Thibault and idiot Andre. Christina Applegate (TV's "Married: With Children") stars opposite Reno as Thibault's direct descendant, Julia, and 12th-century bride, Lady Rosaline.
Rounding out the cast is Tara Reid ("American Pie") and Matthew Ross ("Carnal Crimes"), a couple of very American actors trying very hard to Americanize a movie that never should have crossed the Atlantic.
"Just Visiting" is hard to describe in a cinematic context, due in most part to its forgettable-ness.
Though the opening scenes reek of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," complete with narrator, slapstick humor and obtuse bloodshed, it quickly abandons this humor genre for the typical modern fare: bodily excrement, sustained yelling and brazen stupidity.
At times there is a buffoonish brotherhood between the Frenchmen Reno and Clavier as they play a medieval Abbott and Costello, but these vaguely entertaining segments are eclipsed by garish Disneyisms — the pretty, made-up Applegate getting sprayed with slime, the villainous Ross unknowingly eating a toilet freshener-disc, ad infinitum.
One would be lying to say that there wasn't humor in the film, especially during scenes when Clavier is amicably vying for tablescraps amidst the dogs and other lesser creatures. But one would also be forced to admit that a certain type of melancholy guilt accompanied the aftermath of each chortle.
The length of "Just Visiting's" stay in theatres can, fittingly, be found in the title.
--one and a half shamrocks (out of five)
All Scene Stories for Thursday, April 12, 2001
