Mr. Bean's Holiday 2007

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Too often in Mr. Bean's Holiday, you get the feeling Rowan Atkinson and his collaborators confused the notion of 'building a gag slowly' with 'forgetting to build one at all'. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Director Bendelack and writer-producer McBurney aim for the comedy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Tati, relying heavily on sight gags and their star's pratfalls and facial contortions, but they vititate the comic payoffs by allowing scenes to run too long. Read more

Ted Fry, Seattle Times: The trifling delights of Mr. Bean's Holiday come to a thundering crescendo during the movie's last 10 minutes in a sequence which almost reaches the enchanting heights of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. Read more

Amelie Gillette, AV Club: Mr. Bean's Holiday is a very cute movie. Unfortunately, cute is rarely funny. Read more

Suzanne Condie Lambert, Arizona Republic: Among the pluses: Atkinson is a gifted physical comedian. And the film is a rarity: a kid-friendly movie that was clearly not produced as a vehicle for selling toys and video games. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Somewhere, Jacques Tati is smiling. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Don't mistake this simpleton hero, or the movie's own simplicity, for a lack of smarts. Mr. Bean's Holiday is quite savvy about filmmaking, landing a few blows for satire. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Mr. Bean's Holiday is no Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, but preteens especially might enjoy it. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: A refreshingly blunt reminder of the simple roots of comedy in these grim, overly manufactured times. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Atkinson's goofball grotesquerie never lets up. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: A throwback to silent movie clowns. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The humour in Mr. Bean's Holiday, more chucklesome than uproarious, doesn't feel particularly contemporary. It has the kind of simplicity that's most likely to appeal to either the old or young. Read more

Luke Y. Thompson, L.A. Weekly: It turns out to be far better than you'd imagine, especially with Willem Dafoe cheesing things up as a pretentious auteur. Read more

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: The Wikipedia page on gurning lists Atkinson right behind Jim Carrey as one of the world's leading practitioners of grotesque face-making. And this is his ghastly masterpiece. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: While Mr. Bean's Holiday is hardly a memorable vacation, Atkinson proves an agreeably silly tour guide. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Things break, food is inappropriately disposed of and a silly man in a brown suit makes bug-eyed faces. Just the thing your inner toddler might like, assuming he can stay awake. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: For a silly kids movie about an accident-prone man on a trip to the beach, Mr. Bean's Holiday is actually quite mean-spirited and pretentious. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: If you've never been particularly fond of Atkinson's brand of slapstick, you certainly won't be converted by this trifle. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Mr. Bean's Holiday picks up steam when it finally arrives in Cannes just in time to wreak yet more havoc at the big film festival, but getting there is pretty tedious. A little of the wildly mugging Atkinson goes a long way. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: If Brit comic Rowan Atkinson really is retiring his greatest creation, he's certainly kissing him off in style with this glossy, often charming road picture that has none of the coarse or crass tone of the Hollywood hit Bean of 10 years ago. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: The film's Harold Lloyd-inspired slapstick may be infantile, but it has an innocent sensibility that is a nice counterbalance to the equally childish but prurient American Pie flicks. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The old Mr. Bean was a lot funnier than this one. It's a combination of things: lackluster writing (neither Richard Curtis nor Mel Smith returned this time), a lack of energy, and curiously poor timing for some of the jokes. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Atkinson's Mr. Bean, a man of few words, carries their memory in his rubbery bones. When it comes to knowing where he came from, he's got the beat. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: An only intermittently funny sequel that finally livens up in the last third. But that part -- a hilarious putdown of the pretension at the Cannes Film Festival -- is worth sticking around for. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Mr. Bean's Holiday doesn't try for too much, but in the crass and noisy theme park that is children's entertainment, it's as refreshing as icewater on a summer day. Read more

Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times: For younger audiences, Mr. Bean's Holiday will be a pleasure, and of course, Bean addicts will, as always, be happy to see Atkinson's alter ego return to the big screen. Read more

Tony Wong, Toronto Star: Bean seems to lament how some filmmakers have forgotten that film is foremost a medium of mass entertainment. The great sadness is that without uttering much of anything, is a few jokes short of making a very good point. Read more

Time Out: With its obvious nods to Tati, a surprise for Charles Trenet lovers and much humour at the expense of celluloid pretensions, there's ample diversion here for even the snootiest cinemagoer. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The film, set mostly in France, pays homage to Jacques Tati, but the mostly silent gags feel like watered-down Bean. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: Pic's film-buffy slant, with a finale at the Cannes Film Festival, won't mean much to the ankle-biting segment of Bean's audience. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Do you Bean? If you do Bean, rejoice. Bean is back. If you don't Bean, here's a chance to start. Bean now, or forever hold your peace. Read more