Mr. Bean's Holiday
Mr. Bean's Holiday | |
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Directed by | Steve Bendelack |
Screenplay by | |
Story by | Simon McBurney |
Based on | |
Produced by | |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Baz Irvine |
Edited by | Tony Cranstoun |
Music by | Howard Goodall |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures[1] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 89 minutes |
Countries | |
Languages |
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Budget | $25 million[3] |
Box office | $232.2 million[1] |
Mr. Bean's Holiday is a 2007 comedy film directed by Steve Bendelack and written by Hamish McColl and Robin Driscoll, from a story penned by Simon McBurney. Based on the British sitcom series Mr. Bean created by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, it is a standalone sequel to Bean (1997). The film stars Atkinson as Mr. Bean, with Maxim Baldry, Emma de Caunes, Willem Dafoe and Karel Roden in supporting roles. In the film, Mr. Bean wins a trip to Cannes, France, but on his way there, he is mistaken for a kidnapper and meets an award-winning filmmaker after he travels with both a Russian filmmaker's son and an aspiring actress in tow.
Produced by StudioCanal, Working Title Films and Tiger Aspect Films, the film was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2007 and in the United States on 24 August 2007 by Universal Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics, but was a commercial success, grossing $232.2 million worldwide against a $25 million budget.[4]
Plot
Mr. Bean wins a holiday trip to Cannes, a video camera, and €200 in a raffle. Upon arriving in France, Bean causes chaos while trying French seafood cuisine at Le Train Bleu and asks Russian film director Emil Duchevsky to film him boarding his train using his video camera at the Gare de Lyon. However, the two keep doing retakes at Bean's request until the train leaves with Bean and Duchevsky's son, Stepan, onboard and Duchevsky left behind.
Bean and Stepan bond and get off together at the next station, which Duchevsky's train passes through without stopping; he holds up a sign with a mobile phone number written on it for Stepan to call, but inadvertently obscures the last two digits. After Bean unsuccessfully calls the number with various combinations of digits in place of the unknown ones, another train arrives and the two get on. They are promptly ejected in Cavaillon as Bean had accidentally left his wallet, passport and ticket at the previous stop.
To earn money, Bean busks as a mime/singer and buys himself and Stepan food and bus tickets to Cannes. However, Bean's ticket is caught in the wind and eventually stuck on the foot of a chicken, which is then packed into a farmer's truck. Bean chases the vehicle via bicycle to a farm, where he is unable to locate his ticket due to the large number of chickens there. Following an unsuccessful hitchhiking attempt, he continues his journey alone on foot. Sometime later, Bean wakes up on the set of an elaborate yogurt commercial directed by American filmmaker Carson Clay and starring aspiring actress Sabine, in which a quaint French village is under attack from Nazi soldiers. Bean briefly stars in the commercial as one of the soldiers before being dismissed for showing his video camera in the advert, and accidentally causes the set to explode while recharging his camera.
Continuing to hitchhike, Bean is picked up by a Mini identical to his own driven by Sabine, who is on her way to the Cannes Film Festival, where her debut film directed by Clay, Playback Time, is to be presented. They stop at a service station, where Bean reunites with Stepan. Sabine takes him with them, believing Stepan to be Bean's son. The next morning, the trio arrive in Cannes thanks to Bean driving through the night after Sabine falls asleep.
At a petrol station, Sabine sees on the news that she and Bean are suspected of kidnapping Stepan. In a rush to Playback Time's premiere, rather than head to the police to clear the misunderstandings, she has Bean and Stepan disguised as her mother and daughter to avoid detection at the festival. During the premiere, the audience shows complete disinterest in Playback Time, which centers on a homicide detective's pining for a lost love. Sabine discovers that her role has been cut, prompting Bean to plug his video camera into the projector and replace the film's visuals with his video diary. The footage aligns well with the film's narration to present Sabine as the hero's lost love and Bean as her new lover. Clay, Sabine and Bean all receive a standing ovation, which becomes more enthusiastic when Stepan is reunited with his parents onstage.
Bean exits through the theatre's back door and finally arrives at the Cannes beach as desired, where he, Sabine, Stepan, Clay, and other people mime to the song "La Mer".
Cast
- Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean
- Emma de Caunes as Sabine
- Maxim Baldry as Stepan Duchevsky
- Willem Dafoe as Carson Clay
- Jean Rochefort as the Maître d'Hôtel
- Karel Roden as Emil Duchevsky
- Steve Pemberton as The Vicar
- Catherine Hosmalin as Ticket Inspector
- Urbain Cancelier as Bus driver
- Stéphane Debac as Traffic Controller
- Julie Ferrier as The First AD
- Lily Atkinson as Lily
Production
This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2020) |
Plans for a second Mr. Bean film were first revealed in February 2001, when Rowan Atkinson - who was filming Scooby-Doo at the time - was lured into developing a sequel to Bean (1997), from a script written by Mr. Bean co-creator Richard Curtis that would have followed Mr. Bean heading to Australia under the working title Down Under Bean.[5] No further announcements regarding the film were made until early 2005.
In March 2005, the film was officially announced, then titled Bean 2, with
Mr. Bean saying "Gracias" to French people was inspired by McBurney's great uncle, who told McBurney's father that he had no trouble with the language barrier during his tour of Europe because he knew the essential French word "Gracias".[7]
Atkinson said that despite the great length of time since he had last portrayed Mr. Bean, he had no trouble getting back into the character.[10] Atkinson reflected in 2022 that since he was neither an athlete nor a cyclist, he found the cycling sequence to be the most difficult thing he had ever done as Mr. Bean.[11]
Music
The film score was composed and conducted by Howard Goodall, who also composed the original Mr. Bean series, although the original Mr. Bean theme was unused. In contrast to the series' use of simple musical repetitions, the film uses a symphonic orchestration, which is a sophisticated score that features catchy leitmotifs for particular characters or scenes. The film's theme song was "Crash" by Matt Willis.
Release
Theatrical
Mr. Bean's Holiday served as the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money made from the film going to the telethon's charity Comic Relief. Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch titled Mr. Bean's Wedding was broadcast on the telethon for Comic Relief on BBC One on 16 March 2007.[12]
The official
Home media
Mr. Bean's Holiday was released on DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007, and on Blu-ray on 16 April 2019.[13][14][15]
Reception
Box office
Mr. Bean's Holiday opened in the United States on 24 August 2007 alongside War and The Nanny Diaries, and grossed $9,889,780 in its opening weekend while playing in 1,714 theaters, with a $5,770 per-theater average and ranking fourth at the box office. The film then closed on 18 October 2007 with a final domestic gross of $33,302,167 and a final international gross of $198,923,741. Culminating in a worldwide total of $232,225,908, the film has become commercially successful considering its $25 million budget.[4][3] The film was released in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2007 and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends, before being dethroned by Wild Hogs.[16][17]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 51% based on 115 reviews with an average rating of 5.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Mr. Bean's Holiday means well, but good intentions can't withstand the 90 minutes of monotonous slapstick and tired, obvious gags."[18] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 56 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[19] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[20]
Steve Rose of
Ty Burr of The Boston Globe wrote, "Either you'll find [Atkinson] hilarious—or he'll seem like one of those awful, tedious comedians who only thinks he's hilarious." Burr also said "There are also a few gags stolen outright from Tati", but concluded "Somewhere, Jacques Tati is smiling."[27] Tom Long of The Detroit News said, "Watching 90 minutes of this stuff—we're talking broad, broad comedy here—may seem a bit much, but this film actually picks up steam as it rolls along, becoming ever more absurd." and also "Mr. Bean offers a refreshingly blunt reminder of the simple roots of comedy in these grim, overly manufactured times."[28]
Suzanne Condie Lambert of
Ruthe Stein of the
Accolades
References
- ^ a b "Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
- ^ a b "Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)". Archived from the original on 1 January 2018.
- ^ imdb.com. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
- ^ a b "Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ "Bean Down Under For Rowan Atkinson". cinema.com. 7 February 2001. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
- ^ "Rowan Atkinson to return in Bean 2". Movieweb.com. 28 March 2005. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
- ^ a b Mr. Bean's Holiday - "French Beans" (DVD). Universal Studios. 2007.
- ^ Shreya, Kumari (2 June 2022). "Where Was Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007) Filmed?". The Cinemaholic. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
- ^ "Want funny? See his movies". Los Angeles Times. 13 July 2003. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
- ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday - "The Human Bean" (DVD). Universal Studios. 2007.
- ^ GQ. "From Mr Bean to Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson breaks down his most iconic characters". YouTube. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
- ^ "Mr Bean's Wedding". YouTube.
- ^ "Mr. Bean's Holiday Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
- ^ "Mr. Bean's Holiday Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
- ^ Drawbaugh, Ben (20 February 2008). "Two years of battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray: a retrospective". Engadget.
- ^ "Weekend box office 30th March 2007 – 1st April 2007". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
- ^ "Weekend box office 6th April 2007 – 8th April 2007". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
- ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday – Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 24 August 2007
- ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved 24 August 2007
- ^ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
- ^ Arendt, Paul (29 March 2007). "BBC – Movies – review – Mr Bean's Holiday". BBC. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
- ^ French, Philip (1 April 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Observer. UK. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
- ^ Ide, Wendy (29 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Times. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
- ^ Rose, Steve (30 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2007.
- ^ Rainer, Peter (24 August 2007). "New in theaters". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Biancolli, Amy (23 August 2007). "Savvy satire on filmmaking". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Burr, Ty (24 August 2007). "Clowning around is all in good fun". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Long, Tom (24 August 2007). "Broad comedy hits its marks". The Detroit News. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Lambert, Suzanne Condie (24 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's Holiday". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Toppman, Lawrence (23 August 2007). "After 12 years, Atkinson's 'Bean' act still child's play". The Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 24 August 2007.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Stein, Ruthe (24 August 2007). "Look out, France – here comes Mr. Bean". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Weitzman, Elizabeth (24 August 2007). "This Bean dish isn't for all tastes". New York Daily News. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Villarreal, Phil (23 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's reverse Midas touch getting old". Arizona Daily Star. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
- ^ Puig, Claudia (23 August 2007). "Humor in 'Holiday' isn't worth a hill of Bean". USA Today. Retrieved 24 August 2007.