Mr. Bean's Holiday

Mr. Bean's Holiday

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Steve Bendelack
Produced by Peter Bennett-Jones
Tim Bevan
Eric Fellner
Screenplay by Hamish McColl
Robin Driscoll
Story by Simon McBurney
Starring Rowan Atkinson
Emma de Caunes
Max Baldry
Willem Dafoe
Karel Roden
Jean Rochefort
Music by Howard Goodall
Cinematography Baz Irvine
Edited by Tony Cranstoun
Production
company
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • 24 March 2007 (2007-03-24) (UK)
  • 30 March 2007 (2007-03-30) (US)
Running time
 85 minutes
Country United Kingdom
France
Language English
French
German
Russian
Spanish
Italian
Budget $25 million[1]
Box office $229.7 million[2]

Mr. Bean's Holiday is a 2007 British family road comedy film, directed by Steve Bendelack, music composed by Howard Goodall, produced by Peter Bennett-Jones, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, written by Hamish McColl and Robin Driscoll and starring Rowan Atkinson, Max Baldry, Emma de Caunes and Willem Dafoe. It is the second film based on the television series Mr. Bean, following the 1997 Bean. The film was theatrically released on 24 March 2007 by Universal Pictures.

The film received mixed reviews from critics, but earned $229.7 million on a $25 million budget. Mr. Bean's Holiday was released on DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007.

Plot

The film opens with Mr. Bean driving up to a church, where a fete is taking place. Bean wins the first prize in a raffle – a holiday involving a train journey to Cannes, a video camera, and €200.

Following a misunderstanding involving a taxi at the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris, Bean is forced to make his way unorthodoxly towards the Gare de Lyon to board his next train towards Cannes. However, a vending machine prevents him from boarding, and he misses his train, giving him an hour to sample French seafood cuisine.

Back on the platform, Bean asks Russian movie director Emil Duchevsky (Karel Roden) to use his camcorder to film him walking onto the train. Bean makes a big fuss and keeps asking for retakes, so by the time they are done, the train is about to leave. Although Bean manages to get onto the train, the doors close before Duchevsky can get on. Duchevsky's son, Stepan (Max Baldry) is therefore left on board by himself.

Bean attempts to befriend the boy, who has been told to get off at the next station, and eventually comes to his rescue at the station, unfortunately missing his train again. The train Stepan's father has boarded does not stop at the station, and a mobile number is held up, with the last two digits obscured. Attempts at calling the number prove fruitless. The next train comes and they board. However, Bean has left his wallet, passport and ticket on the telephone box and they are thrown off the train.

Attempts at begging and miming to Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" prove successful, and Bean buys the pair a bus ticket to Cannes. Bean managed to lose his, though, and attempts to hitchhike his way there. Mr Bean soon falls asleep, exhausted from walking and wakes up on what appears to be a quaint French village but is actually a film set. Bean ends up as an extra in the shooting, directed by Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe), but inadvertently ends up destroying the set in an explosion when he charges his camera.

Bean then tries to hitchhike again and a lime-green Mini identical to his picks him up, driven by Sabine, who offers him a lift to Cannes. She is an aspiring actress on her way to the 59th Cannes Film Festival where the film that Clay directed is going to be presented with her scene. When they stop at a service station, Bean finds Stepan dancing in a cafe with a band and they head on.

Sabine assumes Stepan is Bean's son, while Stepan thinks Sabine is Bean's girlfriend. On the road, Bean and Stepan use Sabine's phone to call his father again, but to no avail, and the trio end up driving through the night, arriving in Cannes the next morning.

At a petrol station, Sabine sees Mr. Bean's photo on TV as a suspect of kidnapping Stepan and Sabine as Bean's accomplice. However, since she does not want to miss the film in Cannes in just one hour, she does not want to go to the police now to clear the misunderstandings. Therefore, they have to work out a way to get into Cannes without being identified. Stepan dresses up as a girl while Mr. Bean dresses up as Stepan's grandmother. The ploy works and Sabine arrives on time.

After sneaking into the premiere, many of the viewers find Clay's film terribly boring and Bean is disappointed to see that Sabine's role has been cut from the film. He plugs his video camera into the projector, projecting his video diary. The bizarre tale it tells fits director Carson Clay's narration well, and the director, Sabine and Bean all receive standing ovations and Stepan is finally reunited with his father.

After the screening, Bean leaves the building by the back door, and onto the beach, encountering many of the characters from the film. The film then ends with Bean and all the other characters of the film miming a large finale to the music of Charles Trenet's song "La Mer", with arms raised in the air. Just before the credits Bean writes fin in the sand with his foot.

Cast

Rowan Atkinson at a premiere for the film in March 2007

The film music was written by Howard Goodall. It has a symphonic orchestration, a sophisticated score instead of the show's tendency to simple musical repetitions and features catchy leitmotifs for particular characters or scenes. The film official soundtrack was "Crash" by Matt Willis.

Release

In March 2005, news of the second film first broke out, suggesting that it would be written by Simon McBurney. In December 2005, however, Atkinson stated that the screenplay was being written by himself and his long-time collaborator Richard Curtis.[3] The screenplay was finally confirmed to have been written by Robin Driscoll, Simon McBurney and Hamish McColl.[4] The film began shooting on 15 May 2006. Its working title was French Bean.

It was the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief.[5] Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch was broadcast on the Comic Relief telethon on BBC One on 16 March 2007. The movie's official première took place at the Odeon Leicester Square, in London on Sunday, 25 March 2007, and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief, and the Oxford Children's Hospital Appeal charity.

In February 2007, Atkinson also said that Mr. Bean's Holiday would most likely be the last Mr. Bean story he appears in. He was quoted as saying "Never say never", but went on to add that it was highly unlikely he would appear as Mr. Bean again. In November 2006, Universal Pictures released an teaser trailer,[6] and the next month, launched an official website online.[7]

Home media

Mr. Bean's Holiday was released on DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007.

Reception

The film was met with mixed reviews by critics. On 18 November 2012, the film had a score of 56 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 26 reviews.[8] On Rotten Tomatoes, 51% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 110 reviews (56 "fresh", 54 "rotten", average score of 5.5/10) with the critical consensus stating "Mr. Bean's Holiday means well, but good intentions can't withstand the 90 minutes of monotonous slapstick and tired, obvious gags."[9] Matthew Turner of View London gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and said "Crucially, the film-makers have decided to make Bean more of a bumbling innocent, than the obnoxious and frequently mean-spirited character of the TV show", and that the film is a "surprisingly sweet comedy" with inspired gags that is much better than the previous film.[10]

BBC film critic Paul Arendt gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, saying "It's hard to explain the appeal of Mr Bean. At first glance, he seems to be moulded from the primordial clay of nightmares: a leering man-child with a body like a tangle of tweed-coated pipe cleaners and the gurning, window-licking countenance of a suburban sex offender. It's a testament to Rowan Atkinson's skill that, by the end of the film he seems almost cuddly."[11] Philip French of The Observer referred to the character of Mr. Bean as a "dim-witted sub-Hulot loner" and said the plot involves Atkinson "getting in touch with his retarded inner child". French also said "the best joke is taken directly from Tati's Jour de Fête."[12]

Wendy Ide of The Times gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and said "It has long been a mystery to the British, who consider Bean to be, at best, an ignoble secret weakness, that Rowan Atkinson's repellent creation is absolutely massive on the Continent." Ide said parts of the film are reminiscent of City of God, The Straight Story, and said two scenes are "clumsily borrowed" from Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Ide also wrote that the jokes are weak and one gag "was past its sell-by date ten years ago".[13] Steve Rose of The Guardian gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, said the film was full of awfully weak gags, and "In a post-Borat world, surely there's no place for Bean's antiquated fusion of Jacques Tati, Pee-Wee Herman and John Major?",[14] while Colm Andrew of the Manx Independent said "the flimsiness of the character, who is essentially a one-trick pony, starts to show" and his "continual close-up gurning into the camera" becomes tiresome.[15]

Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor gave the film a "B" and said, "Since Mr. Bean rarely speaks a complete sentence, the effect is of watching a silent movie with sound effects. This was also the dramatic ploy of the great French director-performer Jacques Tati, who is clearly the big influence here."[16] Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying "Don't mistake this simpleton hero, or the movie's own simplicity, for a lack of smarts. Mr. Bean's Holiday is quite savvy about filmmaking, landing a few blows for satire." Biancolli said the humour is "all elementally British and more than a touch French. What it isn't, wasn't, should never attempt to be, is American. That's the mistake made by Mel Smith and the ill-advised forces behind 1997's Bean: The Movie."[17]

Ty Burr of the Boston Globe said "Either you'll find [Atkinson] hilarious—or he'll seem like one of those awful, tedious comedians who only thinks he's hilarious." Burr also said "There are also a few gags stolen outright from Tati", but concluded "Somewhere, Jacques Tati is smiling."[18] Tom Long of The Detroit News said "Watching 90 minutes of this stuff—we're talking broad, broad comedy here—may seem a bit much, but this film actually picks up steam as it rolls along, becoming ever more absurd." and also "Mr. Bean offers a refreshingly blunt reminder of the simple roots of comedy in these grim, overly manufactured times."[19]

Suzanne Condie Lambert of The Arizona Republic said, "Atkinson is a gifted physical comedian. And the film is a rarity: a kid-friendly movie that was clearly not produced as a vehicle for selling toys and video games", but also said, "It's hard to laugh at a character I'm 95 percent sure is autistic."[20] Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer gave the film 2½ stars out of 4 and said "If you like [the character], you will certainly like Mr. Bean's Holiday, a 10-years-later sequel to Bean. I found him intermittently funny yet almost unrelentingly creepy", and also "Atkinson doesn't have the deadpan elegance of a Buster Keaton or the wry, gentle physicality of a Jacques Tati (whose Monsieur Hulot's Holiday inspired the title). He's funniest when mugging shamelessly..."[21]

Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle said that "the disasters instigated by Bean's haplessness quickly become tiresome and predictable" but said that one scene later in the film is worth sticking around for.[22] Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and said "If you've never been particularly fond of Atkinson's brand of slapstick, you certainly won't be converted by this trifle." and also "If the title sounds familiar, it's because Atkinson intends his movie to be an homage to the 1953 French classic Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. Mr. Hulot was played by one of the all-time great physical comedians, Jacques Tati, and that movie is a genuine delight from start to finish. This version offers a few laughs and an admirable commitment to old-fashioned fun."[23] Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star gave the film 2 stars and said "If you've seen 10 minutes of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean routine, you've seen it all", and "The Nazi stuff is a bit out of place in a G-rated movie. Or any movie, really", later calling Atkinson "a has-Bean".[24]

Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film 1½ stars out of 4 and said "If you've been lobotomised or have the mental age of a kindergartener, Mr. Bean's Holiday is viable comic entertainment" and also, "The film, set mostly in France, pays homage to Jacques Tati, but the mostly silent gags feel like watered-down Bean."[25]

Awards

List of awards and nominations
Award Category Nominee Result
Young Artist Award and National Movie Award Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actor – Comedy or Musical and Best Comedy Max Baldry Nominated

References

  1. ↑ "Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007) — Box office / business". Retrieved 21 June 2012.
  2. ↑ "Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
  3. ↑ Moviehole.net. Retrieved 25 February 2007
  4. ↑ Paramount Comedy. Retrieved 25 February 2007
  5. ↑ Comic Relief site. Retrieved 25 February 2007
  6. ↑ http://video.uk.msn.com/v/en-gb/v.htm?g=8AAB9DF9-B14D-4DEB-9112-58FAD6DE1EA4&f=&fg=copy
  7. ↑ http://www.beansholiday.com
  8. ↑ Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved 24 August 2007
  9. ↑ Mr. Bean's Holiday – Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 24 August 2007
  10. ↑ Matthew Turner (28 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday – London Movie Review". ViewLondon. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  11. ↑ Paul Arendt (29 March 2007). "BBC – Movies – review – Mr Bean's Holiday". BBC. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  12. ↑ Philip French (1 April 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Observer. UK. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  13. ↑ Wendy Ide (29 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Times. UK. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  14. ↑ Steve Rose (30 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  15. ↑ Review by Colm Andrew, IOM Today
  16. ↑ Peter Rainer (24 August 2007). "New in theaters". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  17. ↑ Amy Biancolli (23 August 2007). "Savvy satire on filmmaking". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  18. ↑ Ty Burr (24 August 2007). "Clowning around is all in good fun". Boston Globe. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  19. ↑ Tom Long (24 August 2007). "Broad comedy hits its marks". The Detroit News. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  20. ↑ Suzanne Condie Lambert (24 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's Holiday". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  21. ↑ Lawrence Toppman (23 August 2007). "After 12 years, Atkinson's 'Bean' act still child's play". The Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  22. ↑ Ruthe Stein (24 August 2007). "Look out, France – here comes Mr. Bean". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  23. ↑ Elizabeth Weitzman (24 August 2007). "This Bean dish isn't for all tastes". Daily News. New York. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  24. ↑ Phil Villarreal (23 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's reverse Midas touch getting old". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  25. ↑ Claudia Puig (23 August 2007). "Humor in 'Holiday' isn't worth a hill of Bean". USA Today. Retrieved 24 August 2007.

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