In the movie, a medieval knight of noble blood has committed a tragedy and it forces him to ask a wizard for a solution. The imperfect solution ends up propelling the Knight, played by Jean Reno (Leon, Ronin) and his servant, played by Christian Clavier (Napoleon), into modern times. The movie examines how they deal with the changed world of 1000 years in their future where not only has time changed technology, but it's seemingly changed morals and values as well. To tell you any more would be to spoil the fun here so I won't do it.

Okay, I liked the acting by Reno and Clavier. I now see why the critics though Clavier was a poor choice for the role of Napoleon in the miniseries I reviewed recently. His comic timing was great and he pretty much stole the show from the rest of the cast, including Reno, in both of his roles (he also played one of his own ancestors who's managed to make it big). Reno's performance, on the other hand, was less about prat falls and more about playing the role straight with the circumstances at hand. In both cases, the actors did a fine job. The situation itself, while wildly unbelievable, did allow for a twist on the typical contemporary man goes back in time by sending the ancient man to the modern setting. Given some of the all but unexplainable things we do in society, this is certainly fertile ground for a competent director to handle. Director Jean-Marie Poiré has a feel for the absurd situational comedy although I think too many golden opportunities were passed up to make the movie more appealing to the lower classes in France (and elsewhere). Accessibility in modern filmmaking is one of those balancing acts that few can handle well, given the large disparities in the potential audiences around the world. On top of that, many of the jokes seemed geared towards a French audience and humor rarely translates all that well (good thing Clavier was here, huh?). That said, there was a wide enough range of humor that only the most ethnocentric buffoon will be completely out of luck in this regard.

I also liked that the picture was presented in Anamorphic Widescreen. While some real extras would've been nice, if given the choice, the feature itself is where I want the resources concentrated. The director remade this one for an American audience and I may review that in the future to see if there's any major differences.In all, a movie worth it's current low end cost, for whatever flaws it had.

Picture: The picture was presented in it's originally filmed 2.35:1 ratio Anamorphic Widescreen aspect and looked very clear. There were some minor transfer flaws such as the shimmer you get when you see a picket fence and there was also a number of minor flaws that appeared to come from the print itself. The blacks did not appear to be absolutely black but were close enough that only on rare occasions did it matter. The grain and color problems were minimal.

Sound: The sound was presented in Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 French with removable English subtitles as well as an option for Captions for the hard of hearing. The soundtrack was not perfect with some dialogue being too understated and other times simply muddled but generally clear on average. Lastly, the subtitles were kept to the black bars of the screen which was nice-I've seen subtitles placed on the picture which makes poor use of the area beneath it on widescreen movies in the past.

Extras: 5 trailers

Final Thoughts: Okay, the technical aspects were pretty solid, the cost is generally under $10 online, and the acting and script strong enough to merit checking out. With all that, I'm rating this as a rental unless you are familiar with the movie. It's definitely a movie with a niche market in mind. Lots of people dislike subtitles and others hate the French enough that they can't see straight, so for them, I'd suggest passing this one up but for the rest of you, it may well be good enough to buy.