When it comes to poking fun at a country, France is an easy target. Sure, they eat snails and don't wipe themselves after they shit, but we'll let that slide.  The funniest thing about the French might be their sense of humor...or complete lack thereof.  Bad Jerry Lewis films aside, two of the country's most popular comedies (The Visitors and Little Indian, Big City) are moronic, fish-out-of-water stories that failed in the U.S. and were remade as even worse American films (Just Visiting and Jungle2Jungle, respectively).

Why these two films?  One could contend the French enjoy the fish-out-of-water genre because they all smell like fish out of water themselves.  These are the kind of tired films that usually star Brendan Fraser (Encino Man, The Scout, Blast From the Past, Monkeybone) and tank domestically at the box office.  I'm not sure which is more of a shock – that these films are so popular in France, or that they keep being remade into unwatchable American movies.

The original Visitors, which was nominated for eight César Awards in 1994, starred Jean Reno (before The Professional put him on U.S. radar) and Christian Clavier, who also co-wrote the film's script.  Both stars and co-writer/director Jean-Marie Poiré are back for this remake, which will probably be one of the most unfunny films of 2001.  Visiting begins in 12th century Sussex, where the French Count Thibault (Reno) is about to marry a beautiful Englishwoman (Christina Applegate...can you believe Married With Children debuted 14 years ago?).  Through some bunk involving a jealous man and a witch, Thibault is given a potion that makes him hallucinate and kill his new bride at their reception.

They sure knew how to do things right in the 12th century, as witnessed by Thibault's immediate incarceration and scheduled beheading.  As he waits for his date with the guillotine, Thibault and his faithful servant André (Clavier) are visited by a wizard (Malcolm McDowell) who plans to rescue them via time travel.  But he forgets to put an important ingredient in his potion, and Thibault and André get trapped in the bowels of time...meaning they end up in present-day Chicago.

Most of the film's comedy is supposed to come from Thibault and André being amazed and frightened by every modern convenience, from cars to urinal cakes.  None of it works.  Equally as weak is the story, which involves a bookish museum curator (Applegate again) who thinks Thibault is her long-lost cousin, but turns out to be his 30th generation descendant.  The fact that Julia looks like Thibault's beloved makes absolutely no sense, and the fact that they're related means they can't do it, which rules out any typical screen romance.  Instead, the filmmakers throw us a romance bone in the form of Tara Reid (American Pie), who both falls in love with the idiot André and proves she's just as untalented as her own idiot fiancé, Carson Daly.

Visiting is just plain awful, from the unoriginal script to the ridiculously fake backgrounds used in the 12th century scenes.  The acting is bad, and the direction is even worse.  The film offers a couple of laughs (literally), and both come at the expense of the script's absurdity.

1:28 -

for violence and crude humor