My last movie of the summer...my final hurrah to close out this year's list...I wanted to go out with a bang...I thought that a movie with an old favourite was a safe bet.
Well...I was wrong...sadly.
After watching Mr. Bean's Holiday, it has become painfully obvious that the once fresh, hilarious, and tasty Mr. Bean has grown old and stale. The once lovable character who we adore because of his bumbling pantomime way of over-complicating simple tasks has been reduced to a thoughtless rude but still oblivious bumbling fool. In Bean's hey-day, Rowan Atkinson successfully made this character endearing but those moments are few and far between here.
The movie follows Mr. Bean on his trip to Cannes where he meets this boy on a train who's lost his dad (thanks to the inconsiderate mishaps of Bean). The story follows Bean trying to reunite the kid to his father who's also a judge at the Cannes Film Festival. All the while Bean videos every misstep on a digital video camera he's won (with the world's LARGEST memory card I gather...since he's videotaping several days straight).
Not to say there aren't some sweet funny parts in the movie. Two notables are the ending when his video is spliced into an big headed director's (Willem Dafoe of Spiderman's Goblin fame) indy film, and when Bean is dancing in a farmer's market to raise money to get him and the kid to Cannes.
However, Mr. Bean is better served in small doses and doesn't translate well on the big screen. Mr. Bean's Holiday is still a better flic than his last horrendous one in the 90's, but if you want to see Mr. Bean in his prime, take the time and watch some of his classic shorts...I'd recommend the Christmas one where he gets his head caught in a turkey...exactly how I'd like to remember him.
4.2 cans of Bean out of 10.
PS To make up for this poor last movie, I'm going back to watch Rush Hour 3...it couldn't be any worse right?
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