Customer Reviews

Mr. Bean's Holiday (Widescreen Edition)

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The Dick Van Dyke Show. The Lucy Show. The Odd Couple.

What on earth do these wonderful old T.V. shows have to do with Mr. Bean's Holiday?

Well, not a whole lot thematically, but there is one very significant tie between them. The classic shows mentioned above were not children's programs. They were prime-time comedy series aimed at adults. They were clean as a whistle for the most part, as shows then tended to be, but the subjects of the shows revolved around divorce, marital troubles, problems at the office etc.

Unfortunately, modern entertainment equates "adult" with sex and violence. In other words, the word adult has been appropriated. Nothing could possibly be funny, clever, inventive or exciting if there isn't at least some sex or controversy right? It's a pretty sad state when "adult" has come to mean "15 year-old boy" :/

Now before you roll your eyes, I am as far from being a prude as you can get. I own and admire scores of R-rated films, and listen to music that would make most "hipsters" hair curl with shock and disgust. But there was a time when writers actually had to be clever to get a laugh, imagine that. Any idiot can walk into a theater full of adolescents, drop the F-bomb and get roars of laughter, and do, now that was easy. The industry has gone from using salatious material to be thought-provoking (Kubrick, Scorsese) to relying on it for an easy thrill.

Well just when you thought that the art of being funny without body parts and fart jokes was a lost art, along comes Mr. Bean. Rowan Atkinson reminds us with this funny, charming film, that funny is funny. My 9-year-old roared with delight throughout the entire film, as did my wife and I. And the added kick was, it was the first time in a long, long time we did it as a family, without my wife holding the remote with a death-grip to skip over something. It was a nice, and far-too overdue feeling.

Of course there are several references thoughout the movie that will sail over the heads of most children, a scene satirizing a pretentious, arty filmmaker for instance (which was hilarious), but the lion's share of the old, almost silent film-style sight gags and elaborately choreographed Buster Keaton stunts (The amazing walk over a busy highway was pretty impressive), will entertain anyone with a bit of wonder left in them.

A previous reviewer believed that today's children would be bored by Mr. Bean's goofy antics. Sadly, these days he may be right. There are no CGI thingies crashing into each other, no underdressed teen girls chatting on cell phones at the mall, and believe it or not, no fart jokes. But you know something, when I watched my daughter laugh and applaud at the end, I think ...maybe he's wrong.

Much, much better than the original Bean movie, in part because Atkinson is a lot funnier when people around him don't talk too much (unlike the first entry). In fact, every thing I disliked about the first Bean movie was corrected here. THIS is what I was hoping for the first time around.
It takes a while for the film to get going but a couple of the set-pieces had me laughing with tears as did the ending. I've watched the fantastic, final musical number countless times.
Not to say this is Citizen Kane but certainly a great time at the movies.

Compared to recent American Comedies that consist of an endless series of explosions and fart jokes (when they're not burping), this British Film is a delight.

Although much of the film may be a bit slow for American tastes, the pace is well considered and the leisurely segments only make the manic episodes all the more enjoyable.

Like the Disney Hit "Meet the Robinsons", much of the movie doesn't seem to make sense, until the ending when everything comes together in a brilliant, laugh-out-loud conclusion.

A MUST SEE !!

Finally! This movie is clean but brilliant and sheer entertainment. You can take your saintly aunt Jemima to this one, and you need not fear to let your children, or grandchildren view it either. It is a G and deserves the rating; there is literally nothing in it that is in any way objectionable. Why can't other films accomplish this?

When my wife and I went to see "Mr Bean's Holiday" it was pouring down with rain outside. It was the first day of school too. Maybe that was the reason why there were only six in the movie theater to see this gem? We were three couples, yet for all the small number there was regular, hearty laughter throughout the whole performance.

I don't know why some reviewers found it uneven or disappointing. It managed to have a lot of brand new material in it. The on-location European filming gave added interest. We never lost track of the plot or lost interest in the action.

We're ordering one for ourselves (the wife and I) and one for the biggest of Bean fans among our grandchildren.

By the way every one of more than a dozen grandchildren has been absolutely delighted with Mr Bean and have asked to see the episodes from the TV series again and again, as well as the movie "Bean". This one caps the lot in my opinion.

This is the best Bean ever made. It is a very special, beautiful roadmovie, it makes you smile, giggle and laugh, it touches your heart, it makes you admire its beauty... it is slapstick with romance... it is romance with humor... it is great cinema. Rowan Atkinson is better than ever, his Mr. Bean has reached the Olympus of art. Peter Sellers, Sir Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton will love him. But... Mr. Bean is alive and well.

Thank you, Rown Atkinson!
Thank you gvery much for this great movie!

Walter

(Walter-Joerg Langbein)

If you read the critiques of this latest Bean movie (his French vacation) by Amazon's "Thorn Hill at the Movies" from Venice, CA and Jenny J.J., the New Yorker in Florida, you will immediately notice two things:

First, both of these critics are very intelligent and really know the art of film making. They both wrote lengthy reviews explaining why, in detail, Rowan Atkinson and his cast will never be nominated for an Oscar for this movie.

And the second thing that will immediately be obvious to you, if you read the other reviews from the people who laughed so hard they spit their popcorn all over the theater floor, is that they missed the point of the whole movie.

This was not supposed to be a deeply moving life-changing theatrical event to catch the attention of the Academy Awards. This was the same old crazy, dumber than "Dumb and Dumber" Mr. Bean up to his same old zaney antics and bufoonery!

You either like it or you don't. You either find him funny or you don't.

Most of the people in the theater I was at found the movie hillarious. But then, most of them were not Hollywood trained critics. (And frankly, I can't vouch for their IQ level either!)

One thing is clear, though: This is definitely the best made of all Rowan Atkinson's films.

Having never seen Mr. Bean before (only seeing Rowan in Johnny English), 5 minutes into the movie I was sure it was going to be pretty dumb. After 20 minutes I thought it was pretty good. By the the end of the movie, I was sure it was the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. The movie was brilliant and family friendly (not often in combination) and Rowan was hilarious. Who knew Willem Dafoe could be so funny? The supporting cast was just right with lots of sight gags for everyone and enough subtle intelligent jokes for the adults. No wonder it did $250M+ worldwide. It is rumored this is the last Mr. Bean show. Let's hope not!

This movie is fantastic, i don't know what the other two reviewers were thinking. It manages to be hysterically funny and at the same time very touching and sweet. It has a great supporting cast too. It's much better than bean:the movie, because it does in fact, have a plot. It's exactly the oppisite of events strung together, as Bean:The movie was. This movie has a wonderful story line that keeps the audience laughing and crying at the same time.
One of the best movie's i have seen in a very long time.

i saw mr bean's holiday and i love it rowan atkinson is very funny i love all of his movies i also love the mr bean show my whole family are mr bean fans this is the best bean movie ive ever seen this gets a 10/10

Whether or not you find this DVD hilarious or as thrilling as watching paint dry rather depends on how much a fan you are of Rowan Atkinson, the 1980s's British answer to Jerry Lewis. If you care about as much for either one as you would for having root-canal dentistry performed with a jack-hammer, then you can skip this DVD entirely, and the rest of the review too. Although Mr. Bean, the near-to-silent, endlessly inventive, rubber-faced (and apparently rubber-limbed) every-schlub is a little quieter than Jerry Lewis, he is just as comically accident-prone.

After all, who else on earth could find himself with his foot caught on a tall clothing rack, above his head... on a French TV production set... while costumed as a WWII German soldier... because he was practicing a really, really enthusiastic goose-step... after being shanghaied as an extra. The film involved is a commercial for yogurt, by the way. What the logic is in that, I have no idea, although Mr. Bean subsequently manages to blow up the director.

The plot, such as it exists is gossamer thin, and in places reminiscent of the classic Mr. Hulot's Holiday, being almost entirely composed of sight gags and gentle pratfalls. Mr. Bean wins a charity raffle first prize; a camcorder and an all expense paid trip to the French Riviera. He gets as far as Paris before the inevitable cascade of misfortune begins. In short order and in no particular order he manages to get his tie caught in a vending machine, fill an expensive handbag with raw oysters and causes a visiting Russian filmmaker to miss the train to Cannes. He also looses his bus ticket to a chicken, after miming a performance of "O Mio Bambino Caro" in a French open-air market in concert with the young son of the aforementioned Russian filmmaker, and has his bicycle run over by a tank He does eventually manage to reach Cannes and the seaside that he has been dreaming of while his home movies of the trip win a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival ... don't ask me to explain how that happened, but be assured there is some gentle fun to be had in skewering self-indulgent movie directors. Don't miss Willem Dafoe's brief turn as an auteur filmmaker/movie star with a hilariously awful but artistic movie. Whatever else can be said about Willem Dafoe, he does have enough confidence to parody himself. And the locations, especially those shot in and around the South of France are beautiful, as gorgeous as an expensive coffee-table book.

Overall, Mr. Bean's Holiday is a gentle, old-fashioned comedy - the kind of family friendly comedy that is hardly ever made any more; it can hardly be more unlike something like "Borat" and still be on the same planet. Some bits that are funnier that others, but there is nothing mean, foul-mouthed or vulgar about "Mr. Bean".It will even bear watching over and over again. Extras include more than twenty minutes of scenes that were omitted from the finished film, and three aptly titled features: "French Beans", which followed some of the more elaborate set-pieces filmed in the Luberon locations, "Beans in Cannes", explained how the crew managed to film on location during the international film festival, and "The Human Bean" featured brief interviews and reminiscences with other cast members.