Mr. Bean's Holiday is the second film based on the television series Mr. Bean, following the 1997 film Bean. News of the second movie first broke in early 2005, suggesting that it would be written by Simon McBurney, although in December 2005, Atkinson stated that the screenplay was being written by himself and longtime collaborator Richard Curtis. The screenplay was finally confirmed to have been written by Robin Driscoll, Simon McBurney and Hamish McColl. Atkinson also said that Mr. Bean's Holiday will be the last Mr. Bean story.Unlike the 1997 Mel Smith film, Mr Bean's Holiday was directed by Steve Bendelack. The film began shooting on 15 May 2006.
It was the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief . Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch was broadcast on the Comic Relief telethon on BBC One on the 16th March, 2007. The movie's official premiere took place at Leicester Square's Odeon in London on Sunday, March 25th and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief and the Oxford Children's Hospital Appeal charity.
Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer in November 2006 and in December 2006 launched an official website online. The second full length trailer made it online late-January 2007.
Mr Bean has come full circle. Beginning life as an experiment by Rowan Atkinson into how funny he could be without talking, Mr. Bean quickly became a 1990s television favourite. Later, American audiences were introduced to this lovable, child-like buffoon with "Bean: The Movie" outdoing all expectation to gross more than US$230 million internationally. Now it looks like Mr. Bean has taken that final step to become 'Mr Has-bean'.
When Mr Bean wins first prize in a church raffle he is sent on a train trip to the French Riviera, video camera included. As usual, the trip does not go as expected with Bean continuously finding trouble in the most ordinary of situations. As his journey progresses Bean finds himself in the company of two unwitting accomplices: Stephan (Max Baldry), the son of Russian movie director Emil (Karel Roden); and Sabine (Emma de Caunes), an up-and-coming actress and star of the new Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe) production. Accused of kidnapping, Bean finally sneaks his way into the Cannes Film Festival where his holiday footage is aired.
While Rowan Atkinson's particular brand of physical comedy still contains some hearty laughs, this movie stinks of the $1.95 bin at your local video store. Many of the funniest moments in the movie are simply rehashed jokes from the original series. A brief stint with an overenthusiastic maitre d' (Jean Rochefort) in a French seafood restaurant will leave those who remember the steak tartare disaster of 1990 suffering a nagging sense of deja vu.
Not only is this movie tediously obvious, it is also incredibly slow. The French influence means that no one says anything remotely comprehensible for the first half of the movie, with Bean keeping to his characteristic grunts while other actors speak subtitled French. Willem Dafoe is almost a blessing as the overacted film director - for nothing more than he speaks English. Fans offended by the Americanisation of "Bean: The Movie" will find the obtuse French influence of this film grating to say the least.
From critics, Mr. Bean's Holiday has garnered mixed reviews. As of April 13, 2007 the film has a rating of 50% from 10 reviews on the film rating site Rotten Tomatoes.
However, the film has been very successful at the box office. It took an opening gross of USD$12.7 million in the United Kingdom, the biggest opening for a film in 2007 so far. As of May 3, 2007 the film has grossed USD$154.6 million globally.
