365 Days. 365 Films.

I’ve always been a fan of Mr Bean and was surprised when I realised I had never seen this before… Upon what I thought was a repeat viewing, I realised that I didn’t recognise anything about Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie. What I thought was this film that I had watched must have been the TV show, and thus I have another film to review… and it’s going to be a good one!

I did love this film because it reminded me of the TV show, rather than Mr Bean’s Holiday (which I have also reviewed in this blog) it encompassed everything brilliant about the original show. Rowan Atkinson simply is Mr Bean, and although he has done a lot of other great things and contributed greatly to British comedy, to me he will always be known as Bean.

In this film Mr Bean is nominated to go to America to deliver a speech about a painting that has recently been bought by a Los Angeles gallery. For some reason he works in a British gallery, employed to ‘sit in the corner and look at the paintings’ and in an attempt to get him fired, one of his senior colleagues sends him on this very important job, knowing that he will ultimately fail. When in America he stays with a traditional American family, the father of which is also working on the grand opening project.

Mel Smith does a great job with the direction – another great British comedian – and the chemistry between Atkinson and Smith is evident in this. Looking at some other online reviews, this film did not get the credit it deserved, but I’m assuming that a lot of the reviews I have read have been written by people who were not original fans of the TV show. What I would recommend is, if you haven’t seen this film, don’t watch it yet, watch the TV show first, then we’ll talk…