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Although Rowan Atkinson’s last appearance as Mr. Bean in Mr. Bean’s Holiday may strain the tolerance of those who are skeptical of the Chaplinesque performer, fans who have chortled and guffawed through Bean’s former adventures with his knitted teddy and slide-bolted minicar will rejoice at the prospect of Bean on the loose in France – their patience will finally be rewarded.

Atkinson’s comedy skills, developed at Oxford and showcased in TV series such as Not the Nine O’Clock News, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line, find sublime expression in the character of Mr. Bean. In the former series based on the character, precise diction, adopted to overcome a speech impediment, was the hallmark of an individual whose sense of his own importance was at odds with the situations and people he encountered. Mr. Bean’s inarticulate gurgling, comic body language and rubbery facial expressions are internationally recognized. Whether finding himself accompanied in a toilet cubicle because his tie is caught in someone’s back pocket or apparently having a turkey for a head as a result of searching for a lost watch, Mr. Bean is a sure-fire laughter-raiser on any mile-high viewing program.

In this second full-length feature, Mr. Bean attends a local church fête in the pouring rain of an English summer and buys the winning raffle ticket for a holiday in Cannes – cue the first of many gags as the winning number is 616 and Bean holds his ticket upside down. In the course of the journey the journey to Cannes, recorded on a video camera that was part of the prize, he misses trains, loses money and his passport and gains two traveling companions: Stefan (Max Baldry), a Russian boy separated from his father, and the attractive female star (Emma de Caunes) of a WWII movie. Bean almost scuppers the latter, kitted out in Nazi uniform as an extra – cue John Cleese style goose-step.

“Bean, Sabine”, repeats the excited hero when the starlet tells him her name, more impressed by her shiny version of his signature green mini than by her good looks. Having command of three foreign words, of which only two – “oui” and “non” are French, he relies entirely on his mimetic skills in a series of comedy set-pieces which include consuming a plat de fruits de mer recommended by the snooty head waiter (Jean Rochefort) at the Gare de Lyon, overtaking a Tour de France team on a stolen bicycle and performing an astonishing repertoire of dance styles in a street market.

The build-ups to the set-piece jokes have an insufficient number of minor laughs, and in close-up, the 52-year-old Bean no longer seems the lovable idiot so much as a slightly creepy loner. This and a sense of repetition mar much of the film.

The film’s most successful section is its final third, when Bean arrives in Cannes in time to reunite Stefan with his father and attend the premiere of a pretentious art movie written by, directed by and starring ego-maniac Casey Clay (Willem Defoe). The satirical edge will delight film-buffs, particularly the sight of Defoe gazing enraptured at his own performance whilst the audience around him nods off. Bean’s final descent to the beach is as beautifully choreographed as a Mr. Magoo cartoon, the protagonist saved time and again from disaster by the narrowest of squeaks. The closing ensemble musical number ties together the preceding soundtrack of French popular songs – a final homage to Jacques Tati’s masterpiece, Mr. Hulot’s Holiday – and a celebration of seaside pleasures, as Mr. Bean gets his toes wet at last. The re-creation of the traditional French village, not so far removed from the popular stereotype of the ‘Allo ‘Allo! TV series, has foreshadowed a nostalgic, upbeat ending for what is probably the last we’ll see of Mr. Bean – except for repeats on long-haul flights.

© 2007 Sheila Cornelius. All rights reserved.

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