Just like Jackie Chan, British comedian Rowan Atkinson managed to become one of the most popular and most recognisable actors in the world without becoming familiar to American audiences. His best roles were those in *Black Adder*, but the global popularity came with *Bean*, comedy show almost exclusively based on visual humour and little dialogue. This route was used in the *Bean*, 1997 feature film version of the show, directed by Mel Smith. That film was supposed to establish Atkinson as the star in USA.
In this film Atkinson's character of Mr. Bean is the employee of British National Gallery. Due to his annoying habits and tendency to wreak havoc he is equally despised among colleagues and management. When the opportunity to get rid of him, at least temporarily, arises, they use it - Mr. Bean is given the assignment in Los Angeles. He is to preside over the unveiling of "Whistler's Mother", the most famous painting in American art history, in Grierson Gallery. Due to a series of misunderstanding he is mistaken for art expert by Grierson Gallery employees, including David Langley (played by Peter MacNicol) who makes even worse mistake of inviting "Dr. Bean" to his home. This would result with series of disastrous incidents that compel Mrs. Langley (played by Pamela Reed) to leave her husband. To make things even worse, Langley's job is also on the line.
In its time, *Bean* caught a lot of attention with promotional campaign unprecedented for the film outside Hollywood mainstream. That campaign served producers very well (at least outside USA), because on its own *Bean* would fare very badly. Its main problem is inability of screenwriters Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll to create some kind of coherent plot around gags that made Atkinson and his character so famous. There are indeed some hilarious moments in this film, but they are too few of them and the audience is forced to endure at least one hour of generic plot, situations and characters. Nihilism of the TV series is also compromised with the cheap sentimentality and clumsy attempt of endorse American "family values". Film also suffers because of the uninspired casting. While Atkinson can play his character very well (even when his cliched transformation from disaster into saviour gets unexplained) otherwise respectable actors like MacNicol, Harris Yulin, Pamela Reed and Burt Reynolds are completely wasted in their undeveloped roles. In the end, *Bean* is watchable enough and doesn't deserve to be branded as ultimate disaster, but it isn't far from deserving such reputation either.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
*(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on February 10th 2004)*
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1281-bean
Critic: A