JUST VISITING

What happens when a 12th-century French chevalier and his manservant are magically transported to 21st-century Chicago? Why, hilarity ensues! And if you think two men bathing in a toilet or trying to free the people trapped inside a TV or chewing on urinal cakes is funny, then this is the picture for you.

The sh-out-of-water scenario is nothing new. And in this Disney remake of a film that never cried out to be remade, it’s even more redundant. Jean-Marie Poiré’s French-language Les visiteurs (1991) was bad. His Just Visiting is the same flick, in English, with some added star power (otherwise respectable actor Jean Reno reprises his role as the knight), a bigger budget, and Americanized humor — a mix that accomplishes the commendable feat of making this worse than the original.

Christina Applegate, so accustomed to base humor from her Married . . . with Children days, plays the straight role here (two of ’em, in fact). It’s not a task that suits her. Malcolm McDowell continues a sad career decline with a cringe-inducing turn as an inept wizard, and George Plimpton snoozes his way through a cameo as a museum curator. And perhaps it’s a minor point, but someone with a surname like mine doesn’t appreciate it when one of the duo’s boorishly atavistic behavior is explained away by “I’m sorry. He’s French.”

— Mike Miliard