365 Days. 365 Films.

Mr Bean first came onto our screens in 1990 and has been a successful TV character since, created and played by Rowan Atkinson. The first Mr Bean movie came ten years before this sequel in 1997, and contrary to ratings, I think it was better than this. Mr Bean wins a holiday to France in a raffle and from Paris he must travel to Cannes on the train. After asking a man to video him getting onto the train, he steps on board, unwittingly leaving the man behind as the doors close and the train sets off. Bean realises that the man’s son is still on the train and devotes himself to reuniting the pair.

Like the TV series and the first movie, there isn’t a lot to the comedy, although where this is different is that this causes a problem. The jokes either go on for far too long or not long enough to even be classed as jokes and where this was never a problem before, it’s getting a little old now. I still love the character and really wanted to like this film but it was dull and not worth seeing at the end of the day.

Another problem I had with this film is that, although the style of the jokes were similar it didn’t have the same feel to it as the series, perhaps due to the lack of ‘canned laughter’ or maybe the character has been overdone slightly, but the path of destruction that Bean caused was never the focus of this film. This is probably the best aspect of the series and the first film, but it seems like the writers were focussing too much on how to create bigger laughs and in the process, probably created less.

I can only hope from here that there are no more attempts to bring back Mr Bean because this film doesn’t do the series justice at all. This is the end of Mr Bean as we know it. RIP.