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Time travel trouble trumped

August 2nd, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Life · 1 Comment · Life

Well I watched the sequel to Les Visiteurs tonight. It looks like the filmmakers also spotted the plot hole I wrote about yesterday and used it as the basis for a second film: Les Couloirs du Temps: Les Visiteurs II. Snappy title eh? I’ll put a break here in case anybody doesn’t want spoilers.What they did was this. The prospective father-in-law was missing his jewels and said that Godefroy could not get married unless they were found. Then he fell very ill. On top of that it turned out that one of the jewels was a holy relic that grants fertility without which Godefroy would have no children – or great,great, ect. grandchildren. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the wizard said that leaving Jacquouille in the future, bringing Jacquard back to the past and having the jewles in the future was causing the time corridor to stay open and would bring down the seven plagues of Egypt.

Basically its a bit like the time rift in Cardiff in Doctor Who/Torchood I suppose.

So what they did was more or less admit that the jewel business was a bit of a paradox and that it needed to be resolved. What followed was more of the same as the first film but with a bigger budget, and that is the problem with it: it really was just more of the same. Hanging an entire film on variations of one joke can be done, hanging an entire sequel on variations of the same joke and it wears a bit thin.

I think the stupidity of Jacquouille and the petty crimininality of Ginette also wore a bit thin. I know the film is supposed to be a bit of a farce, but even by those standards the characters were too much like caricatures.

Most of the original cast members were retained with the notable exception of Frénégonde who was played by a different actress. This was a shame because apart from obviously looking different she had a totally different personality.

It was OK I suppose, but a bit of a wasted opportunity. At least it wasn’t a total let-down like Battle Royale II.

The ending really left the way open to a third film. Fortunately a third film was not made – they opted to do an American version of the first film instead, which isn’t on my list of films to watch.

 

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