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Mr Bean's Holiday

3/10

Stars: Rowan Atkinson, Emma de Caunes, Willem Dafoe, Karel Roden, Jean Rochefort

Director: Steve Bendelack

Bean fans will doubtless be delighted with this account of their favourite funnyman's disaster-fraught trip to Cannes. Others, however, may be less amused by the harmless but largely laughless escapade.

Frenzied gurning by star Atkinson removes the potential from all the farcical situations, as Mr Bean inevitably gets lost on the way to the holiday of a lifetime in Cannes. And his attachment to a young boy (Max Baldry) is, alas, more creepy than comic.

Joihn Cleese's Clockwise is the laughter-raising model for this kind of thing. Here, Bean's lack of dialogue puts a positive damper on the fun and only the last few minutes really work, as the threads of the story come together, Atkinson performs his one funny routine by walking across buildings, vehicles and people on his way to the beach, and the whole cast ends up singing La Mer.

Any connection between this otherwise painful experience and the classic Monsieur Hulot's Holiday is purely in the makers' imagination.

David Quinlan

UK/France 2007. UK Distributor: Universal. Technicolor.
89 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: PG.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 23 Mar 2007