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80But while rooted in British sensibilities, Bean is not to be confused with a Noel Coward comedy. Not every gag in Bean succeeds, but compared with most comedies, this one is a keeper.
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75But there's no denying the movie's frequent hilarity, abetted by Mel Smith's superbly laid-back directing and on-target performances by an excellent supporting cast.
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75Some of the middle section of Bean sags, but most of the film zips along with a series of comic setups, played like skits, that emphasize Bean's klutziness, his feeble mentality, his childlike, me-too urges.
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75To enumerate exactly how Bean messes up would be to expose the silliness of this movie, and since Bean's humor is terribly silly, rather, wonderfully silly, there isn't much point in going into detail.
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75In this slapdash production directed by Mel Smith ("The Tall Guy" but also, alas, "Radioland Murders"), written by Richard Curtis ("Four Weddings") and Robin Driscoll, there's just enough unrepentant self-centeredness missing to take the hilariously brutish edge off Bean's game for those who know him.
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70The idea of Bean fitting into this situation, even disastrously, requires more than suspension of disbelief. It requires a full blackout of reasoning. But for the converted, and for people with a low threshold for visual comedy, Bean amounts to a hill of laughs.
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70The movie feels stretched out and thin.
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63There are many moments here that are very funny, but the film as a whole is a bit too long.
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63While Bean branches out from the format developed for the television series, it remains faithful to the concepts and constructs that led to its success.
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60Whatever the reason, Bean saddles Atkinson with a story that hangs on him like a dead weight and a filmmaking style that surrounds him like dead air.
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60Atkinson, who is in almost every scene, boasts a full-on comic personality that on the cinema screen is a bit daunting at times, and it's an open question as to whether the Carrey crowd will go for this seriously eccentric Brit.
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Nevertheless, Bean has been a huge hit in Europe, where it opened last summer, and it may contain enough laughs to work here. Well enough, one hopes, to produce a funnier, sharper, better crafted "Bean 2." [07Nov1997 Pg.63]
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50Bean falls well short of a work of genius. Indeed, the unbearable slightness of Bean feels like nothing so much as a betrayal of the television series on which it is based.
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40There are only so many pratfalls you can string together sans storyline and keep a ball like this rolling, and unfortunately, too many of Bean's schticks were old news by the time they first aired on PBS.
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40This is not comedy - it's mugging. And there's no excuse for making Bean cuddly; he only works with an evil edge.
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When Atkinson tries to stretch familiar Beanisms into 80 minutes, the results are mostly unsatisfying.
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40Bean represents a dismal dumbing-down of a very bright creation. Is nothing sacred?
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40Rowan Atkinson's recalcitrant TV character is the hub of this 1997 feature that will disappoint fans and nonfans alike.
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30Depending on your taste, either much hilarity or a tedious barrage of tasteless, juvenile pranking ensues. Trust your instincts.
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25At a certain point, Bean goes beyond awful to surreally awful, like the rug Burt Reynolds sports in a cameo. The last-ditch plunge into pathos does nothing to redeem the feeling. Let's hope no sequel is in the offing. The only thing worse than Bean would be a hill of Beans. [07Nov1997 Pg08.D]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 6
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Mixed: 2 out of 6
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Negative: 0 out of 6
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"Bean" is a monotonous movie that pertain a few laughs to laugh; no more, no less.
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10
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10