Finally a Has Bean! (Movie Only Review) (Mr Bean's Holiday (DVD))

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Mr Bean's Holiday (DVD)
Date:	17/04/07 (555 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Slap stick funny at times

Disadvantages: For fans only!

I’m not sure that I’ve ever liked Mr. Bean. I like Richard Curtis and I like Rowan Atkinson and I loved their collaboration that gave birth to the Blackadder franchise. Mr. Bean though.....hmmmmm.....maybe the episodes featuring the teddy bear? Then again, I’ll always love that sketch set on an airplane when Bean is trying to cheer up an airsick boy but as he leans away to reach for something, the boy is discreetly sick into the paper bag that the funny man has been playing around with. As he gets up again, Mr. Bean with goofy expression, pops the bag and.....well....the rest is history! Mr. Bean is something of an institution and children adore his antics so when my 11-year-old lad got me to take him to the flicks to see “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” then it was a trip down memory lane and a chance to review the movie without using the phrase “rubber-faced funny man” when referring to Rowan Atkinson or fall foul of the done-to-death cliché club. And so here it is….a review of the Mr. Bean movie without that particular phrase (or strike me down with a wet kipper and a well-oiled banana skin).

Mr. Bean buys a ticket for the church roof restoration appeal (why else do churches ever have appeals?) where first prize is a holiday in the south of France, some spending money and a brand new camcorder. Winning after some confusion around the actual number, our hero embarks on a trip on the Eurostar train through France on to Cannes which just happens to be staging the Cannes Film Festival at that time. Whilst engaging a passenger to film him getting on the train, the electric doors shut leaving the panic-stricken passenger on the outside looking in as the train pulls away from the station with his son clambering at the train window appealing for advice as to what to do next. Mr. Bean realising that he has split up the two of them, notes the stranded man’s advice for his son to get off at the next station but the follow up train passes straight through without stopping although dad does communicate a note that has a Cannes telephone number on it whilst splayed across a train window. It becomes Mr. Bean’s mission to re-unite the two in what turns into an archetypal road movie full of misadventures and pratfalls.

I guess I expected the Mr. Bean movie to be a series of mini-sketches strung together into a longer effort and, to an extent, this is what the movie is. The presence of a camcorder is an opportunity for a barrage of Atkinson gurning at the self-pointing lens and, whilst funny at times, does get a bit wearing after a while. Rowan Atkinson has lost none of his schoolboy lunacy in what has become a long running comic idiocy and he gets plenty of foils for his bizarre behaviour. Max Baldry plays the unfortunate, lost soul Stepan who predictably comes to like Bean with much of the humour derived from his lack of English as opposed to Mr. Bean’s lack of communication skills in general. Director Steve Bendelack ups the ante with the language barrier farce by throwing in the French speaking Sabine (Emma de Caunes) who is on her way to acting stardom and foolishly offers to give Bean a lift in her mini. With his recent directorial involvement with the League Of Gentlemen movie and a long standing association with comedy productions in general, Bendelack does a reasonable job of stringing together a movie that spans the English channel in its settings and often relies on facial close ups to extract the humour from Mr. Bean’s situations. Of course, much of the comedy is seen through the eyes of onlookers who view Bean’s madness with a detachment that we always find funny underlined by the eccentric man’s crazy antics and a logic that makes sense in an alternate reality somewhere far away.

There are some inspired moments in the movie. Bean’s desperate attempts to garner more money to make more telephone calls whilst trying to track down the correct number for Stepan’s father (the Cannes number that was videoed by Bean has the last digit obscured so our hero works through every conceivable numerical combination to find the correct one) leads him to a spot of busking; cue some floppy dancing to reggae replete with silly faces and a very funny operatical rendition culminating in Mr. Bean pretending to die theatrically whilst wearing a pair of leggings on his head to make him look like a nun. However, these are few and far between and the mainly pre-pubescent audience in the cinema only laughed occasionally which was a surprise given that they were mainly children watching. Willem Dafoe gets a cameo as a film director, encountering Bean’s antics on both the set of a war movie that’s in production and at the finale during the showing of his Carson Clay movie as an entry at the film festival. The irony of the self-absorbed movie director is humorously depicted through the ridiculously overblown effort on screen with the audience nodding off during the arthouse production, presenting the writers with an opportunity to bring all the plot strands together in a rather convoluted finish to the film. By the closing reels, Bean has sparked a nationwide manhunt for him and the unfortunate Sabine who has been branded his accomplice whilst, all along, all Mr. Bean wants is his infantile trip to the seaside.

“Mr. Bean’s Holiday” will appeal to younger children (although note the PG certificate for mild bad language) and with a modest 89 minute running time then it’s a movie that isn’t over long. Rowan Atkinson has said that this is to be the last Mr. Bean story and I couldn’t recommend this one in general although both younger children and Bean fans will probably enjoy it. With this, the Mr. Bean character looks like he has been consigned to perpetual repeats on cable and nothing in the way of new content in future following his inception and screen debut way back in 1990. Maybe that’s the right decision although Atkinson’s pseudo silent-cinema comedian will always be remembered for bringing mirth and merriment to millions.

Thanks for the read

Mara

“Mr. Bean’s Holiday” is on general release across the country.

More info at: www.beansholiday.com/

Summary: Overview of the movie