If you’re rewatching the film today, keep an eye out for the big guy. In a movie filled with time-traveling knights and magical potions, Xerxes remains the most grounded (and biggest) character on screen.
In the original film, the villains were largely confined to the Middle Ages, with the primary conflict arising from the protagonists' incompetence in the modern world. In Les Couloirs du Temps , the scope widens, and Xerxes serves as the central antagonist of the new timeline. By choosing a name that evokes the Achaemenid kings of Persia, the filmmakers immediately signal a shift toward the "sword and sandal" genre. However, true to the Visiteurs style, this historical grandeur is immediately undercut by farce. Xerxes, portrayed by Gotlib, is not a terrifying conqueror, but a chaotic force of nature. His presence transforms the stakes from a simple quest to return home into a struggle to prevent the utter destruction of history itself. les visiteurs 2 les couloirs du temps xerxes
If you can describe what the character looked like or what they did in the movie, I can help you identify who you are looking for. If you’re rewatching the film today, keep an
Aujourd’hui, Les Visiteurs 2 divise parfois la critique. Certains lui reprochent un scénario trop tiré par les cheveux (ce qui est un comble pour un film sur les voyages dans le temps) et des effets spéciaux datés (le fameux "couloir du temps" en CGI bleu azur). In Les Couloirs du Temps , the scope
The French cinema landscape of the 1990s was dominated by few successes as seismic as Jean-Marie Poiré’s Les Visiteurs (1993). The film’s blend of broad physical comedy, archaic language, and the timeless "fish-out-of-water" trope created a cultural phenomenon. Consequently, the 1998 sequel, Les Visiteurs II: Les Couloirs du Temps , faced the unenviable task of expanding the universe while maintaining the chaotic energy of the original. A pivotal, if surreal, addition to the sequel’s narrative is the introduction of Xerxes, a character who embodies the film’s shift from intimate time-travel comedy to a grander, more absurd parody of historical epics. Through the character of Xerxes, the film explores themes of colonialism, the universality of human greed, and the catastrophic potential of misinformation, all while serving as a narrative bridge between the medieval and revolutionary settings.
The film’s greatest running gag is that Xerxes, a bloodthirsty revolutionary, believes he is in the "present" of 1793. When he accidentally lands in 1998, he is utterly useless as a time-traveler. He doesn’t marvel at cars or planes; instead, he tries to behead a tax inspector, declares a supermarket to be a “bourgeois den of iniquity,” and attempts to guillotine a McDonald’s cashier. His anachronism is political , not technological—which is far funnier.