Just Visiting

The poor record of Hollywood remakes of French comedy smashes is scarcely enhanced by writer/director Gaubert's transposition of his time-travel farce Les Visiteurs from Languedoc to Chicago. The original stars Réno and Clavier more or less reprise their Quixotic duo as haughty medieval knight and craven manservant who land in the present, courtesy of a wizard's potion. As you'd expect, the digs at changed manners, class attitudes and status have been coarsened to reflect urban American realities rather than provincial French mores, but it hardly matters in this intentionally puerile romp.