Word: beane
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...delight. Atkinson moves with an awkwardness that can only be described as graceful--an uncoordinated elan, a lithe clutziness. These qualities still exist in the movie, fortunately, but they have been dumbed down. There is more bathroom humor than there ever was in the TV show, and Bean must share the screen with the far less inspired antics of many more characters than he would interact with before. Despite these obstacles, there are definitely some quality moments of vintage Bean schtick, and the comic genius of Atkinson does manage to shine through the otherwise ubiquitous mush...
...basic premise of the movie relies on Mr. Bean having a job and the concomitant responsibilities--things he never had to deal with before. He is a ne'er-do-well employee of London's National Art Gallery whose job security is insured by having endeared himself to the Chair of the Board. In order to get rid of Bean, the other board members vote to send him to America, passing him off as the art expert who will accompany the masterpiece "Whistler's Mother" to a museum in Los Angeles which has just purchased it. The curator...
...course, having a clearly defined plot which plods from point A to point B, also something Mr. Bean didn't have to deal with in the TV show, tones down a lot of Atkinson's lunacy by making it all very predictable. The movie elicits a constant and varied selection of groans and muffled supplications from the audience as they realize the ridiculousness bearing down on Bean three or four steps ahead of the actual on-screen action...
...Making Bean's unwitting victims actual characters--as opposed to leaving them unwitting and unexplored as per the show--also turns out to be a mistake. The movie makes viewers obliged to feel sorry for them, a surefire way to kill the fun. Bean's curator host is incredibly whiny and annoying, and quite undeserving of all the screen time he soaks up. MacNicol, whom one wants to strangle, is straight out of the generic fretting and put-upon straightman mold, and his presence truly cheapens Atkinson's admirable efforts...
...form and style of Bean are remarkably generic and trite. However, Atkinson's antics, though truncated, make it barely watchable. When he is by himself and allowed to perform up to his usual levels, the audience can almost forgive the staleness of his vehicle. Scenes including those wherein he monkeys in front of mirrors, goes on secret undercover missions of silliness and gets himself arrested in an airport simply for being Beanish are the film's only redeeming moments. Unfortunately, the contrived sappiness of the plot takes what should have been divinely inspired idiocy and makes it merely dumb...