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Mr. Bean's Holiday

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Mr. Bean's Holiday
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySteve Bendelack
Screenplay by
Story bySimon McBurney
Based onMr. Bean
by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyBaz Irvine
Edited byTony Cranstoun
Music byHoward Goodall
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release dates
  • 30 March 2007 (2007-03-30) (United Kingdom)
  • 24 August 2007 (2007-08-24) (United States)
Running time
89 minutes
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • United States[1]
  • France
Languages
  • English
  • French
  • Russian
Budget$25 million[2]
Box office$232.2 million[3]

Mr. Bean's Holiday is a 2007 adventure road comedy film based on the British television series Mr. Bean, as well as a standalone sequel to 1997's Bean. Directed by Steve Bendelack and written for the screen by Hamish McColl and Robin Driscoll (a writer on the TV series), from a story by Simon McBurney, it is a French-British-American venture produced by StudioCanal, Working Title Films and Tiger Aspect Films, and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film stars Rowan Atkinson in the title role, with Max Baldry, Emma de Caunes, Willem Dafoe and Karel Roden in supporting roles.

Mr. Bean's Holiday was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2007 and in the United States on 24 August 2007. The film received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, grossing $232.2 million worldwide against a $25 million budget.[4]

Plot

In a raffle, Mr. Bean wins a holiday by train to Cannes, a video camera, and €200. Before catching his train, Bean causes chaos while sampling French seafood cuisine in a Paris restaurant.

On the platform at Gare de Lyon, Bean asks Russian movie director Emil Duchevsky to film him boarding the train using his new video camera. Bean keeps asking for retakes, until the train leaves with Bean and Duchevsky's son Stepan on the train and Duchevsky left behind.

Bean and Stepan get off at the next station. When Duchevsky's train passes through the station without stopping, he holds up a mobile phone number but inadvertently obscures the last two digits. Attempts to call the number are fruitless. They board the next train but Bean has left his wallet, passport, and ticket in the telephone booth and they are thrown off the train.

Bean busks as a mime and buys the pair bus tickets to Cannes. Bean manages to lose both his ticket and Stepan so he sets out walking and hitchhiking.

The next morning, he wakes in what appears to be a quaint French village under attack from German soldiers. It transpires to be a film set for a yoghurt advertisement directed by Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe), and Bean becomes an extra in the advert but is fired due to him holding a camera in the advert and he accidentally destroys the set in an explosion while recharging his camera.

Continuing to hitchhike, Bean is picked up by French actress Sabine on her way to Cannes Film Festival where her debut film is to be presented. At a service station they find Stepan dancing with a band and take him with them. The trio end up driving through the night.

Sabine sees on TV that Bean is suspected of kidnapping Stepan. She doesn't go to the police as she does not want to be late for her film premiere, which is in just one hour. To avoid detection, Sabine disguises Bean and Stepan as her mother and daughter to gain entry to her premiere.

At the festival, Bean and Sabine are shocked to see that Sabine's role has been cut from the film. He plugs his video camera into the projector and projects his video diary. The footage aligns well with Clay's narration, and the director, Sabine and Bean all receive standing ovations. Stepan and Duchevsky are finally reunited.

After the screening, Bean goes to the beach where he and the other characters mime a large French musical finale. After the credits Bean writes "FIN" in the sand with his foot as the camera battery dies, ending the film.

Cast

Rowan Atkinson at a premiere for the film in March 2007.

Production

In February 2001, before filming began on Scooby-Doo, Rowan Atkinson was lured into making a second film adaptation of Mr. Bean, involving Mr. Bean going on an Australian adventure under the working title Down Under Bean.[5] However, this idea was scrapped in favour of Mr. Bean's Holiday, which was particularly inspired by the film Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953), whose title character inspired the character of Mr. Bean. Principal photography for the film began on 15 May 2006 under the working title French Bean.[citation needed]

In March 2005, news of the film suggested that it would be scripted by Simon McBurney, but in December 2005, Atkinson said that the script was actually being written by himself and his longtime collaborator and Mr. Bean co-creator Richard Curtis. The screenplay was later confirmed to have been instead written by Robin Driscoll (also a writer on the TV series) and Hamish McColl while the story was instead penned by McBurney, who also served as one of the executive producers on the film alongside Curtis.[citation needed]

Music

The film score was composed and conducted by Howard Goodall, who also composed the original Mr. Bean series, although the original Mr. Bean theme was unused. It has a symphonic orchestration, which is a sophisticated score instead of the series' tendency to simple musical repetitions and also features catchy leitmotifs for particular characters or scenes. The film's theme song was "Crash" by Matt Willis.

Release

It was the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief. Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch titled Mr. Bean's Wedding was broadcast on the telethon for Comic Relief on BBC One on 16 March 2007.

The official premiere of the film took place at the Odeon Leicester Square on Sunday, 25 March and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief and the Oxford Children's Hospital.[citation needed] Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer for the film in November 2006 and launched an official website online the following month.

Home media

Mr. Bean's Holiday was released on both DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007. The DVD release is in separate widescreen and pan and scan formats in the United States. The DVD charted at No. 1 on the DVD chart in the United Kingdom on its week of release. Following the 2006-08 high-definition optical disc format war, the film was released on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on 18 October 2010. The film was then released on Blu-ray for the first time in the United States on 16 April 2019.[6][7][8]

There are fifteen deleted scenes included in the home media releases. The first deleted scene shows Bean spilling coffee on a laptop in front of two sleeping men; He cleans it up wiping the keyboard with napkins, leaving just as one of the two men wakes up and blames the other for destroying his laptop. This scene was featured on trailers and TV spots for the film, while the North American release has it in place of the vending machine scene. The second deleted scene shows Bean tricking a man to get a train ticket and staying with Stepan on the train.

The fourth shows Bean carrying Stepan all the way through a plaza. The fifth shows Sabine leaving emotionally and almost being run over by a truck, Bean doing silly moves along the road (which are later seen in Carson Clay's Playback Time in the final cut), playing with the shadows in the morning, miming his journey to Stepan at the cafeteria, being menaced by a projectionist at the Cannes Film Festival (during the playing of Clay's film), accidentally cutting the film roll and trying to stick it back together and Carson Clay discovering the film roll accumulating in the projection room. The damaged film is seen lying next to the projector in the final cut, though it remains unexplained. Finally, Bean is seen dancing at the beach, a scene that was replaced by the characters singing "La Mer".

Reception

Box office

Mr. Bean's Holiday opened in the United States on 24 August 2007 alongside War and The Nanny Diaries, and grossed $9,889,780 in its opening weekend while playing in 1,714 theaters, with a $5,770 per-theater average and ranking fourth at the box office. The film then closed on 18 October 2007 with a final domestic gross of $33,302,167 and a final international gross of $198,923,741. Culminating in a worldwide total of $232,225,908, the film has become commercially successful considering its $25 million budget.[4][2] The film was released in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2007 and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends, before being dethroned by Wild Hogs.[9][10]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 51% based on 115 reviews with an average rating of 5.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Mr. Bean's Holiday means well, but good intentions can't withstand the 90 minutes of monotonous slapstick and tired, obvious gags."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 56 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[12] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[13]

BBC film critic Paul Arendt gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, saying that "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."[14] 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 (Bean on an old bike riding faster than a team of professional cyclists) is taken directly from Tati's Jour de Fete."[15] 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".[16]

Steve Rose of The Guardian gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, saying that 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?",[17] 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. 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 wrote, "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 wrote, "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 that "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 that "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]

Awards and nominations

Award Category Nominee Result
29th Young Artist Awards (2008) Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actor Max Baldry Nominated
First National Movie Awards (2007) Comedy or Musical and Best Comedy Nominated

References

  1. ^ "Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)".
  2. ^ a b "Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007) — Box office / business". imdb.com. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
  3. ^ "Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
  4. ^ a b "Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  5. ^ "Bean Down Under For Rowan Atkinson". cinema.com. 7 February 2001. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  6. ^ "Mr. Bean's Holiday Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  7. ^ "Mr. Bean's Holiday Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  8. ^ Drawbaugh, Ben (20 February 2008). "Two years of battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray: a retrospective". Engadget.
  9. ^ "Weekend box office 30th March 2007 – 1st April 2007". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  10. ^ "Weekend box office 6th April 2007 – 8th April 2007". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  11. ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday – Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 24 August 2007
  12. ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved 24 August 2007
  13. ^ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
  14. ^ Paul Arendt (29 March 2007). "BBC – Movies – review – Mr Bean's Holiday". BBC. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  15. ^ French, Philip (1 April 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Observer. UK. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
  16. ^ Wendy Ide (29 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Times. UK. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  17. ^ Steve Rose (30 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
  18. ^ Peter Rainer (24 August 2007). "New in theaters". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  19. ^ Amy Biancolli (23 August 2007). "Savvy satire on filmmaking". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  20. ^ Ty Burr (24 August 2007). "Clowning around is all in good fun". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  21. ^ Tom Long (24 August 2007). "Broad comedy hits its marks". The Detroit News. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  22. ^ Suzanne Condie Lambert (24 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's Holiday". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  23. ^ Lawrence Toppman (23 August 2007). "After 12 years, Atkinson's 'Bean' act still child's play". The Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 24 August 2007.[permanent dead link]
  24. ^ Ruthe Stein (24 August 2007). "Look out, France – here comes Mr. Bean". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  25. ^ Elizabeth Weitzman (24 August 2007). "This Bean dish isn't for all tastes". New York Daily News. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  26. ^ Phil Villarreal (23 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's reverse Midas touch getting old". Arizona Daily Star. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
  27. ^ Claudia Puig (23 August 2007). "Humor in 'Holiday' isn't worth a hill of Bean". USA Today. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
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