REEL CRITIC: ‘Bean’ is sprinkled with some surprises

With the release of summer blockbusters starting to peter out, your choices at the cineplex are growing smaller. You may wonder whether “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” is a contender for your moviegoing dollar.

Well, if you are a Rowan Atkinson fan and you like films with a European sensibility, then this is a good choice. But if mimes make you uncomfortable and you like a lot of bang for your buck, you may want to wait for it to come to Movies On Demand.

If you’ve never seen a Mr. Bean movie, Atkinson portrays a character who is a unique mix of Charlie Chaplin, Pee-wee Herman and Mr. Magoo. Throw in a dash of Inspector Clouseau’s cluelessness and SpongeBob’s self-centeredness, top it with a remarkable talent for facial gymnastics and you’ve got Mr. Bean.

In this installment, Mr. Bean wins a trip to the south of France and a camcorder. He makes it only halfway through his train ride from England before everything goes wrong. Insisting that a stranger get just the right video shot of him boarding the train to Cannes, he causes the man to become separated from his son, already on board.

Feeling just the slightest twinge of guilt, Mr. Bean begrudgingly helps the boy (played nicely by Max Baldry) get back to his father. Mishaps occur, and with no money or train ticket to their names, they have to walk, pedal, hitchhike, scrape and claw their way to Cannes.

On the way, they pass through charming French villages, which is a real perk of this film. An aspiring actress (the lovely Emma de Caunes) joins their crusade and the whole journey ends in a hilarious climax at the Cannes Film Festival.

I personally think Atkinson and the whole Mr. Bean enterprise is hilarious. But even I found some of his antics lasting a little too long in this film. For instance, there’s a scene in which Mr. Bean is offered a gigantic plate of raw oysters and whole prawns. The maitre d’ and the audience watch as he negotiates these creatures for what seems like 20 minutes. And in another scene, he chases a chicken with a bus ticket attached to its foot for an uncomfortably long time.

That being said, no one can pull off certain feats of physical humor like Atkinson. My kids particularly liked when he put slips of paper on his eyelids and tongue and went “blah, blah, blah.” (Trust me, it’s funny.) And there’s a scene in the end that should be on some AFI clip reel for most well-choreographed stunt.

Mr. Bean, intent on reaching the beach he sees in his viewfinder, steps off a roof onto a truck, then a bus, then a car, then a moped, etc., all the way across the busy highway to the sand. The kids are still talking about it.

And speaking of kids, this movie actually has and deserves a G rating. There’s not one offensive word or action in the whole film. And guess what? The kids didn’t miss them. They still laughed heartily. It may not be suitable for the very young, however, because there are quite a few subtitles that go by quickly. Most of the time it’s in English though. Or, refreshingly, without words.

The final scene at a Cannes movie premiere is a great parody of self-indulgent filmmaking. Willem Dafoe (alas, the only American and he’s ugly) is a good sport in his role as Carson Clay, narcissist. He’s the director, producer, writer and star of a terrible movie within a movie.

One’s not sure why Willem Dafoe is thrown in at the last minute until Mr. Bean grabs his camcorder and treats us all to a surprise. And it’s surprises like this sprinkled throughout an otherwise mediocre movie that make “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” an amusing summertime diversion.