Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Just Visiting Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 11, 2016

Just Visiting is a 2001 American remake of the 1993 French film Les Visiteurs, a time-travel story about medieval Frenchmen transported into the modern world, sort of a reversal of the concept seen in Timeline, Director Richard Donner's adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel in which modern day archeologists travel backwards in time to ancient France. Both this film and the original 1993 version star Jean Reno and Christian Clavier in lead roles, and Director Jean-Marie Poiré is behind the camera for each, but that continuity doesn't help the American version escape the stigma of playing like a second-rate copycat. It earns some laughs and makes for a pleasant enough diversion, but ultimately feels rather hollow in its lethargic stretches in between its "fish out of water" gags, which are numerous and endlessly humorous.

I'm a professional...swordsman.

The French Lord Thibault Malféte (Jean Reno) has travelled to England to marry the king's daughter, Rosalind (Christina Applegate). At a banquet celebrating the marriage, Thibault is slipped a hallucinogenic and mistakenly kills his bride-to-be. He's sentenced to death, but with the help of his servant Andre (Christian Clavier) and a powerful wizard (Malcolm McDowell), he acquires a potion that promises to return him to a time in which he can prevent the murder and live happily ever after with his beautiful bride. But the potion doesn't quite perform as advertised. Rather than send him backwards in time by a few days, it springs him forward in time by a few centuries. He and Andre awaken in modern times and meet Julia (Applegate), who quickly realizes that she hails from the same house and lineage as her out-of-time guest. As Thibault and Andre "adapt" to their new surroundings and struggle to find a way home, Julia comes to learn the truth driving her boyfriend Hunter's (Matt Ross) interest in their relationship. Meanwhile, Andre begins a relationship with a neighborhood girl named Angelique (Tara Reid) that will determine his future...and his past.

Just Visiting enjoys its most robust humor as it depicts Thibault and Andre struggling with (and fighting!) modern amenities and trying to sort out where they are and with whom they are dealing. The movie only relents on their ignorant shenanigans near the end. For much of the movie, whether upon their arrival to the modern era or even as they begin to adapt, their interactions are pricelessly funny. They struggle with the concept of an elevator and mistake a car for a dragon (and are "treated" to modern music in the form of Macarena). They awe at the wonder of electricity, struggle with the finer points of modern pummeling and "amenities," they bathe in perfume and toilet bowl cleaner, and eat dog food like it's a delicacy. It's not just the actions that work -- they're funny in their own right -- but in how the actors sell the sense of comic disbelief, fear, and absolute incomprehension of the many technological conveniences modern man takes for granted. Reno and Clavier truly act like strangers in an alien world and together make comedy gold when their limited understanding meets advanced civilization. The movie milks what it has for all its worth, and a fun exercise for after the movie is to look around the house and discover other items and conveniences that would humorously stump someone living so hopelessly out of place and time. Even today's world, less than two decades removed from the film's 2001 release, is a radically different place.

Unfortunately, those moments are about the only moments in which Just Visiting works. The picture is otherwise a flat experience with a core story that's more filler than it is compelling narrative. Just Visiting often feels like a really great skit -- the out-of-time visitors dealing with things they don't understand and that modern man takes for granted -- around which a movie was built, a movie desperate to deliver reasons why and crude and burdensome backstories of lineage, scumbag boyfriends, and human rights just to extend the skit to "feature length." None of that is necessarily bad; it just feels like the story was built around the gags rather than the gags built into the story. Performances are generally flat and unenthusiastic, particularly from all the "modern times" characters. Reno and temporally displaced crew all manage to stretch their material further because they have the best material at their disposal. The movie is further found to be unremarkable, both in terms of its eh special effects and Director Jean-Marie Gaubert's direction. Though he also helmed the original (and a 1998 sequel, and an upcoming 2016 film), his American remake lacks the buoyancy of his first go-round with the material.

Just Visiting Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Just Visiting just sort of gets by on Blu-ray. Mill Creek's 1080p transfer is decent for a budget title, capturing more than adequate detailing and color. Chain mail armor and finer fabric details tend to impress more than anything else in medieval England, while the modern world features many more amenities and miscellaneous background details to enjoy. Skin textures never reach a level of pristine and intimate excellence, but basic skin imperfections, hair, and makeup come through with serviceable high definition complexity. Colors follow suit. Basic greens and supportive shades in old England present with decent vitality, while there's a much broader array of colors to enjoy in the modern world, all of which find fair saturation, though they lack in-depth color nuance. The image pushes rather flat and a little too smooth. Very light grain and various bouts of print wear are evident. Black levels don't struggle too badly, but flesh tones often appear pasty and a bit uneven.

Just Visiting Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Just Visiting is another Mill Creek catalogue title with a rather paltry and uneventful Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. As a general rule, it gets the job done, conveying basic speech, music, and sound effects with enough clarity to get the point across, but little more. Dialogue tends to struggle to reproduce lifelike clarity and maintain even-keeled prioritization at reference volume. Music is likewise lacking authoritative detailing, though spacing is never an issue across the front. Sound effects are likewise capably spread across the front two channels. Definition, however, never elevates above a basic crudeness, whether pronounced lightning and thunder effects or minor support details throughout the film.

Just Visiting Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Just Visiting contains no supplemental content. No pop-up menu is included, and the top menu only offers an option to play the movie. Movie playback begins on disc insertion, foregoing the single-option menu screen.

Just Visiting Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Just Visiting is just entertaining...in spurts. Reno and Clavier devour their roles and offer some of the most purely enjoyable "fish out of water" bits out there. The rest of the movie, however feels like filler. The good news is that the movie's better moments fill up a good chunk of the runtime, and its downtime doesn't last long enough, at least not until the end, to mess with pace and watchability. Mill Creek's Blu-ray release of Just Visiting features decent 1080p video and flat, forgettable two-channel lossy audio. No extras are included. Make sure to check out the original film and pick this up as a companion curiosity.