Just Visiting

• JUST VISITING is one very funny fish-out-of-water comedy the whole family will enjoy. It's 12th century France and Count Thibault of Malfete (Jean Reno, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE) finds his beautiful bride-to-be (Christina Applegate, TV's JESSE) done in by malevolent magic. So he and his loyal servant Andre (Christian Clavier, LES VISITEURS) request the help of a local wizard to right the wrong

SWEETEST THING - DVD MoviePrudes, beware! Despite its tendency to take the comedic low road, The Sweetest Thing is a near-perfect product of the new-millennial Hollywood. That's a backhanded compliment, but as a fun-loving Yankee girl's answer to Bridget Jones's Diary, the mainstream pandering of Nancy Pimental's lucrative screenplay is undeniably effective. On the opening soundtrack, Macy Gray's "Sexual Revolution" is a perfect accompaniment to gyrating guy-dumper Christina (Cameron Diaz), who! se fear of commitment is tested when she meets Peter (Thomas Jane) and knows he's Mr. Right. With supportive gal-pals Courtney (Christina Applegate) and Jane (Selma Blair), she plots to snag the guy, and the movie's road-trip detour mines gut-busting gold from gags involving incriminating dress stains, oral sex, rotting food, garish clothing, and the simple joys of old-fashioned romance. Perfectly cast, raucously ribald, and conventionally charming, The Sweetest Thing is a schizophrenic comedy, but its dual personalities are irresistibly in synch. --Jeff ShannonJUST VISITING is one very funny fish-out-of-water comedy the whole family will enjoy. It's 12th century France and Count Thibault of Malfete (Jean Reno, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE) finds his beautiful bride-to-be (Christina Applegate, TV's JESSE) done in by malevolent magic. So he and his loyal servant Andre (Christian Clavier, LES VISITEURS) request the help of a local wizard to right the wrong and bring his ! beloved back. But the wizardry goes awry and the pair is trans! ported t o 21st century Chicago where they meet Thibault's descendant Julia (Applegate) and her scheming fiance. With their timeless values of honor and courage, they wreak hilarious havoc as they foil diabolical plots in modern-day Chicago and try to find their way back home.Actors Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, along with director Jean-Marie Poiré, were the creative team behind The Visitors, a French comedy from the early 1990s that was a massive hit in its native land and a cult favorite in America. Enthusiastically compared by some to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Visitors concerns a time-traveling, medieval knight and his lowly servant, both lost in the 20th century and both shocked by the discovery of their descendants' reversal of fortunes. The film works not only as a nutty bit of slapstick, but as a cheeky satire about class conflict. The Visitors deserves its admirers, but it doesn't deserve Just Visiting, an oddly inappropriate ! remake featuring the same cast and director, all of whom are undercut by an annoyingly sentimental spin on the original story. This time, Reno and Clavier inexplicably end up in a modern-day U.S. instead of France, and the lure of freedom for Clavier's downtrodden character is tied up not in economics but in his attachment to a fetching neighbor. Blame cowriter John Hughes (Home Alone) for turning something that was once sharp into something dull and sticky. With Christina Applegate, Malcolm McDowell. --Tom Keogh