By Alex Herring
30/03/2007
Certificate: PG
Running Time: 88 minutes
So Mr Bean finally catches a break after winning a holiday to France and a brand new camcorder in a church raffle (unlikely prizes, I know), but obviously the good luck cannot last and as he sets out on his journey, chaos ensues. After many classic Bean mishaps, involving seafood and a tie in a vending machine, he finally boards a train set for Cannes.
After mistakenly making a passenger miss the train, he realises he has separated a child on board from his father. Mr Bean befriends the boy, who just happens to be the son of a Russian film director, and they travel together to the Cannes film festival to reunite him with his dad. This culminates in a scene where Willem Dafoe’s directorial debut becomes cleverly interspersed with shots from Mr Bean’s camera. Emma de Caunes, who plays French actress Sabine, meets the pair along the way and becomes the object of Bean’s affections when he discovers she drives the same mini. With her sweet French drawl and good looks, Emma will definitely be one to watch in the future
As this will be Mr Bean’s final feature film (Rowan Atkinson can be heard breathing a huge sigh of relief), I have to say that as a Mr Bean fan I did expect more from it. Apart from an incredibly funny moment where Bean recreates a scene from an opera in a French market, the film as a whole was slightly sparse. I would liked to have seen more of the Bean we know and love, maybe a few shots of his flat, and where on earth was his beloved teddy bear? Also, whoever thought it would be a good idea to give Mr Bean a camcorder, was very, very, wrong. The camcorder shots were completely unnecessary, mostly due to the fact that they made me feel decidedly queasy. Never mind seeing Rowan’s face that close up on the big screen, the constant jerkiness of it was enough to give anyone a migraine. The end scene was also very strange, as the whole cast begins singing in perfect unison, in a Sound of Music type moment.
If you are a Mr Bean fan, then the funny moments will enable you to overlook the lack of plot. And for the Easter holidays, I can’t imagine a better way to keep the kids quiet for an hour and a half.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Mr Bean’s Holiday is released in the UK on March 30th 2007
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
