Mr. Bean's Holiday

Mr. Bean's Holiday
Directed by	Steve Bendelack
Produced by	Peter Bennet-Jones Tim Bevan Eric Fellner
Written by	Screenplay: Hamish McColl Robin Driscoll Story: Simon McBurney Characters: Rowan Atkinson Richard Curtis
Starring	Rowan Atkinson Emma de Caunes Max Baldry Willem Dafoe Jean Rochefort Karel Roden
Music by	Howard Goodall
Cinematography	Baz Irvine
Editing by	Tony Cranstoun
Studio	Studio Canal Motion Picture Alpha Produktionsgesellschaft Working Title Films Tiger Aspect Productions Firstep Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	29 March 2007 30 March 2007 5 April 2007 14 April 2007 1 June 2007 24 August 2007 24 August 2007
Running time	90 min.
Country	United Kingdom France
Language	English, French, Russian
Budget	$25 million
Gross revenue	$229,736,344 (worldwide) [1]
Preceded by	Bean

Mr. Bean's Holiday (also known as Bean 2, Bean on Holiday and French Bean) is a 2007 comedy film starring Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean which was released in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2007 and on 24 August 2007 in the United States and Canada. It is the second film based on the television series Mr. Bean, a sequel to 1997's Bean. Rowan Atkinson said that this is probably the last appearance of the popular titular character.

Release

News of the second film first broke in early 2005, suggesting that it would be written by Simon McBurney, although in December 2005, Atkinson stated that the screenplay was being written by himself and long-time collaborator Richard Curtis.^[2] The screenplay was finally confirmed to have been written by Robin Driscoll, Simon McBurney and Hamish McColl. Atkinson also said that Mr. Bean's Holiday will most likely be the last Mr. Bean story he appears in.^[3] He was also quoted as saying "Never say never" but went on to add that it was highly unlikely he would appear as Mr. Bean again.^[4]

Unlike the 1997 Mel Smith film, Mr Bean's Holiday was directed by Steve Bendelack.^[5] The film began shooting on 15 May 2006.^[6]

It was the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief.^[7] 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 premiere took place at Leicester Square's Odeon in London on Sunday, 25 March, and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief and the Oxford Children's Hospital Appeal charity.

Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer in November 2006,^[8] and in December 2006 launched an official website online.^[9]

Plot

The film opens with Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) attending a raffle in June. His number is 919, the winning number. But Bean misreads it upside-down as 616. Frustrated that he lost, he throws the ticket onto a toy train. Seeing the ticket upside down reading 919, he grabs the ticket and yells out that he won in his mumbling deep voice. The prize is a holiday involving a train journey to Cannes, a Sony video camera,and €2000.

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. As he misses the train and the next one won't leave for another hour, he has time to sample French seafood at Le Train Bleu restaurant. He accidentally orders oysters and langoustine, which he cannot bring himself to eat. He surreptitiously pours the oysters into a nearby lady's handbag, and eats the whole langoustine without taking off the shell in front of everybody.

Back on the platform, Bean asks a man, who happens to be a Cannes Film Festival jury member and Russian movie critic Emil Dachevsky (Karel Roden), to use his camcorder to film his walking onto the train. By the time they are done, the TGV is about to leave. Although Bean manages to get onto the train, the doors close before Dachevsky can get on. Dachevsky's son, Stepan (Max Baldry) is therefore left on board by himself. Bean attempts to befriend Stepan, with the result that when the boy slaps him in the face and when he gets off at the next station, Bean gets off too and accidentally misses the train, along with his bag aboard. The train that Stepan's father has boarded does not stop at the station, and he holds up a mobile number, but with the last two digits obscured. Their efforts at calling the number prove fruitless. They board the next train, but since Bean has left his ticket and passport on the station public telephone, the duo are soon thrown out of the train.

Attempts at busking by miming to Puccini's O mio babbino caro (sung by Rita Streich) and other music prove successful, and Bean buys them a bus ticket to Cannes. Bean loses his ticket by getting the ticket stuck on a chicken's foot. Mr. Bean then steals a nearby bicycle and follows the chicken which has been placed onto a Peugeot 504 pickup and ends up at a chicken pen. On his return, he finds that the bicycle has been run over by a tank, but the camera is still intact. After attempting to steal a motorcycle and almost getting killed by a lorry, Bean stumbles on to the set for a TV advertisement, which he accidentally blows up, injuring the director Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe).

Bean then tries to hitch-hike again; a yellow Mini picks him up, much like the one he owns in the series, driven by actress Sabine (Emma de Caunes) who Bean encountered both at the commercial filming and previously, who offers him a lift to Cannes. She is on her way to the 59th Cannes Film Festival where Carson Clay's film in which she makes her debut is going to be presented. When they stop at a service station, Bean finds Stepan in a café. He joins them. Bean and Stepan now attempt, again in vain, to call Dachevsky with Sabine's phone. When Sabine falls deeply asleep, Bean then drives the car himself, but he keeps falling asleep. After doing dangerous and painful things to himself to stay awake, Bean and the other two finally make it to Cannes.

When Sabine goes into a petrol station to change for the premiere, she sees a newsflash, wherein the police have made up a story about Mr. Bean kidnapping Stepan and Sabine being his accomplice. However, since she does not want to miss the premiere, she is reluctant to go to the police to clear up the "misunderstanding". They therefore plan to get into Cannes without being identified. Stepan dresses up as Sabine's daughter, while Mr. Bean dresses up as Sabine's mother, who is allegedly Spanish and deaf. They manage to get through the search and Sabine arrives at the premiere on time.

After sneaking into the premiere, Bean is disappointed to see that Sabine's role has been (rather poorly) cut from the film (Carson Clay is seen nodding at the woman beside him at this point, implying that he cut the scene as a favour to his jealous wife), and ends up plugging in his video camera to the projector, where his video diary is unexpectedly played out. However, the strange tale it tells fits director Clay's narration well, so that the director, Sabine, and Bean all receive standing ovations. Stepan is finally reunited with his father.

After the screening, Bean leaves the building and goes to the beach, encountering there many of the other characters. The film then ends with Bean and all the other characters of the film miming a large French musical finale, singing the famous song by Charles Trenet, "La Mer" (Beyond the Sea).

Cast and roles

Reception

As of 24 August 2007, the film had a score of 56 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 26 reviews.^[10] On Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 107 reviews (54 "fresh", 53 "rotten").^[11]

The film was met with mixed reviews by critics. 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 and is much better than the previous film.^[12] 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."^[13] 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 Fete."^[14] 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."^[15] 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?",^[16] 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.^[17]

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."^[18] 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."^[19] 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."^[20] 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."^[21]

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."^[22] 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 Mr. Hulot's Holiday inspired the title). He's funniest when mugging shamelessly..."^[23]

Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle said "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.^[24] 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 Mr. 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."^[25] 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."^[26] 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."^[27]

Rating

In the UK, it was classified by the British Board of Film Classification as PG for containing "irresponsible behaviour."

This film was originally given a PG rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for brief mild language, but Universal cut out most of the language (leaving Stepan saying "damn" in Russian in one shot and the same word in French in a later shot) so the film would be rated G by the MPAA.^[28][29] It was one of the few Universal theatrically released films to be rated G. The first film, by contrast, was rated PG-13. It is much cleaner in content than the original film.

DVD and HD DVD release

Mr. Bean's Holiday was released on DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007. The DVD version is in separate widescreen and pan and scan for the US markets formats. The DVD charted at #1 on the UK DVD Chart on its week of release.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• Official website
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at the Internet Movie Database
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at Allmovie
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at Metacritic
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at Box Office Mojo
• Working Title films page
• Mr. Bean's Holiday pictures