London. Since they cannot fire Mr. Bean, an obnoxiously incompetent security guard working at an art gallery, the board of directors decides to get rid of him by sending him to unveil the painting Whistler's Mother which is about to be shipped to a Los Angeles art gallery. Once in L.A., Bean settles at the home of gallery's curator David Langley, which in turn causes David's wife and two kids to leave him. Bean accidentally sneezes on the painting, thereby destroying its paint, but hides it inside the gallery's wall. To fix this, Bean secretly goes into the gallery at night and replaces the real painting with a poster. When General Newton arrives together with reporters to see the unveiling, they are fooled into believing it is the real one. Bean also wakes up David's teenage daughter Jennifer from a coma after a motorcycle crash, and thus the Langley family forgives him. Bean returns back to London.
6 years after the TV show "Mr. Bean" was released, the producers made this feature length film, which is of varying quality: some jokes work, some are contrived and inept. Two additional flaws are the tendencies of director Mel Smith to recycle jokes from the TV show (the rollercoaster and airplane scenes, for instance) and to indulge in the dumbest possible type of American 'lowbrow' humor for the broader masses, instead of staying true to its British humor (the failed gag of a motorcyclist giving Bean the middle finger, so Bean thinks it is a form of a friendly greeting in California and shows his middle finger to everyone during the ride in a car, was already bad when it was used the first time in the weak comedy "The Beverly Hillbillies"). However, Rowan Atkinson still has a sense for comic timing which helps tip the movie in the better direction, relying on physical comedy and slapstick reminiscent of comedians from the silent movie era, which used it as a form of universal appeal. Bean speaks very little, but is still able to transmit his personality through body language. Surprisingly, Peter MacNicol almost steals the show from Atkinson in dialogue moments, when his character David reacts to the idea that Jon Bon Jovi should unveil the painting Whistler's Mother: "I've nothing against Jon Bon Jovi. The man has had two great hairstyles in the last ten years, which is an achievement not to be sniffed at", but then adds he is still the wrong person for such a task. The finale in the hospital is forced, once again showing that the episodic set of sketches could have been aligned better for a feature film. "Bean" is a fun, silly, crazy, wacky light comedy, but the authors were more inspired in the better sequel "Mr. Bean's Holiday", which had a more harmonious set of jokes.
Grade:++
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