Bean There, Done That
Score: 4/10 (Underwhelming!)
Bottom Line: Save Your Money
To-The-Point: A well-meaning but bland children's film, Mr. Bean's Holiday is hampered by repetitive gags, an unclear target audience, and some questionable material, including a suicide attempt, kidnapping, and Nazi humor.
Complete Truth: I really wanted to like Mr. Bean's Holiday.
As I grew up in the '90s, I became a huge fan of a British comedy show being broadcast on PBS known as Mr. Bean. With the unique, mostly-silent character of Mr. Bean causing chaos with every move he made, my pre-teen brain labeled these antics as the funniest sketches I had ever seen. When he made his big screen debut in Bean, I attended the film with all of my friends for a birthday party - eventually laughing so hard that I began to cry.
That was a decade ago.
Now, with the arrival of Mr. Bean's Holiday, we are once again subjected to the childish antics of an annoying, destructive, and creepy British mute - except that I am now mature enough to realize how unfunny he truly is.
Mr. Bean's Holiday spares no time for "minor" aspects such as introducing narrative elements or developing characters, instead thrusting us immediately into Mr. Bean's (Rowan Atkinson) adventure as he wins a camcorder and a trip to the French Riviera through a church raffle. As the bumbling idiot travels towards his destination - and inadvertently, the Cannes Film Festival - he accidentally separates a child named Stepan (Max Baldry) from his father, Emil (Karel Roden), who happens to be a Cannes jury member. In his quest to reunite father and son, Mr. Bean stumbles across director Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe) and actress Sabine (Emma de Caunes), who conveniently have their upcoming film premiere at - where else? - the Cannes Film Festival. You don't have to be a genius to realize all of these characters will come together in Cannes for the climatic finale, as Mr. Bean makes his final push to the beach, ruining the day for dozens of people in the process.
And what an unamusing trip it is. You can really tell that Rowan Atkinson, director Steve Bendelack, and the screenwriters are really trying their hardest to create humorous scenarios for Mr. Bean to screw up, but the stale gags presented here are far from comedic. Mr. Bean is constantly mugging for the camera, hoping that close-up shots of his goofy face will ellicit laughs. It doesn't. The problem is, however, that nobody behind the movie realizes this - resulting in 90 minutes of facial contortion, childish whining, and immature dancing that is supposed to pass for humor. The creators simply think this film is funnier than it really is.
And, since Mr. Bean is such an uninteresting one-dimensional character, Mr. Bean's Holiday relies on its gags to pass the running time and justify its existence. But when whole scenes are dedicated to Mr. Bean playing with his food, its obvious that the entire film is simply a series of sketches aimed at toddlers, barely held together by a flimsy plot. Even the small bits that do work (such as Mr. Bean speaking Spanish to the French or Stepan slapping Mr. Bean in the face) quicky become repetitive gags that are used whenever the film has nowhere to go or nothing to say - which is quite often.
Coming Soon: The Motorcycle Diaries 2: Electric Beanaloo.
But, here's what befuddled me most: how is a film clearly aiming to entertain children so misguided with its content? Here's a G-rated film that features gags about attempted suicide, Nazism, and vandalism, all contained within pedophilic undertones of a middle-aged man that has kidnapped a child. Your children will learn such great moral lessons, including: trust strangers, destroy property while accusing others of the damage, use theft as a means of accomplishing your goals, and deceivie people into performing your bidding. Outside of these obvious inappropriate elements, Mr. Bean's Holiday also attempts to satirize pretentious independent art by mocking the typical self-centered trappings of American independent films - good luck explaining that to a child that has just laughed at an exploding outhouse (what is this, Daddy Day Camp?).
If this film were edited into a single episode of Mr. Bean, I would have no problem recommending it simply because it would be quick and free. With an entire film, however, there is barely enough material here to even legally call this a feature-length movie, leaving no reason to pay for this drivel. The film finally sputters to life when Mr. Bean arrives in Cannes, slowly gathering laughs through bits about using a fake ID, climbing down vehicles as a staircase, and a semi-brilliant moment in which Mr. Bean's vacation footage replaces a pretentious art film but is still narrarated by that film's voice over - but these brief signs of witty intelligence are sadly a case of 'too little, too late.' Such unexpected cleverness only serves to force us into hating the previous 75 minutes even more, leaving this Holiday anything but.
With crude material, a weak story, and an overly bland presentation, don't force yourself or your children to sit through the tired comedy of an aging British comedian attempting to resurrect the only character he is known for. Why?
Because Mr. Bean is a has-bean.
Side Note: Playback Time, the pretentious art film featured in Mr. Bean's Holiday, is partly a satire of the infamously booed-at-Cannes film The Brown Bunny. This is fitting, mostly because both Mr. Bean's Holiday and The Brown Bunny are excruciatingly boring road trip films that finally perk up in their final ten minutes. This kinda makes me wonder if director Steve Bendelack will curse Ebert with cancer or recut Mr. Bean's Holiday, much like the director of The Brown Bunny, Vincent Gallo, did.
Mr. Bean, I've got a dirty joke that's funnier than this entire movie...want to hear it?
Mr. Bean's Holiday, a Universal Pictures release, is rated G.
Total running time is 87 minutes.
Starring Rowan Atkinson, Max Baldry, Emma de Caunes, and Willem Dafoe. Screenplay by Simon McBurney, Hamish McColl, and Robin Driscoll. Directed by Steve Bendelack.
No comments:
Post a Comment