“Oui! Oui! Bean! Sabine! Russ! Cannes!”

LOL

I don’t think there’s much to add to the first review of this but to say that the whole spectrum between the bad and the good parts of this widened exponentially for me on a second viewing. When it’s unfunny, it’s really pretty excruciating – the restaurant scene at the start, the “amuse the boy” scene on the train shortly thereafter, and the “falling asleep at the wheel” scene towards the end being amongst the most painful; but when it soars, like pretty much from the scene where Bean wakes in the middle of the movie set, the yellow mini approaching, and thereon to the end with him walking down to the beach – yes, even the sing-a-long – I found it even more joyful and beautiful than I did before.

I think the one disappointment most people will have over the movie is that, like the first movie in fact, it’s not just straight-up laughs like the TV show, and because of how bold they’ve been in doing it the same way (it only just struck me this time how many subtitles there are given this was a total Easter holidays movie last year for kids), there are unavoidably moments where it feels awkward (there are even moments like this in Mel Smith’s only slightly better first movie). If you come to it just wanting to smile at France, though, you really can’t go wrong. The boy’s tooo cute when he dresses as a girl too (sorry but I have to say these things sometimes – ok, all the time – lol)

May 16th, 2007:

I was sort of desperate to like this not only because I loved, really loved, Mel Smith’s Bean, but also ‘cos I’ve been informed my favourite cousin Fiona laughed her way all the way through this new installment over the Easter holidays. The reviews weren’t too promising, though …

The movie couldn’t begin better, it’s almost like it’s trying to win me over – Bean stops over and gets led astray in Paris and we get quite a nice video tour of the place – but after an excruciating restaurant scene (in which at least two old gags from the TV series threaten to resurface, and some business with mussels ends up just being plain unpleasant), I honestly thought I was going to go the way of Mark Kermode and wind up really being let down by the rest. But then Bean meets the boy, and there’s a scene on a train platform where he starts to mimic Bean, and what can I say, it just won me over in about 30 seconds.

Sure, you can look at the set-up and in this horrible world we live etc and say, ooh, creepy. Alternatively, you can see a simple-minded, foolish but harmless man and a young boy who ultimately thinks the world of him running around France getting in hijinks. I think there’s something really almost classical here, and if it doesn’t fit in with your dark view of the world, it’s a real shame I think. Rowan Atkinson and the kid work beyond adorably together, Howard Goodall’s music and Steve Bendelack’s direction really lift the whole thing and you can’t help coming out in the end feeling warm and fuzzy inside. Keep watching after the credits, too, btw, there’s a little bit of added cuteness.

Yes, the humour tires towards the end, but as with Bean, there is really more to this than the laughs. There’s this real sense of the camera trying to find the humanity in Bean, and when it finds it, it’s always kind of startling how easy it was. He’s a beautiful character when dealt with correctly, and this movie really didn’t let me down like I thought it would. The more I think about it, the more I want to see it again.

It’s taken me a long time but I’m finally, slowly, recently coming to the realisation that I really just don’t like Ridley Scott in general – that is, that the movies of his that I tend to love … and yes, when I like a Ridley Scott movie, I really like it … they always tend to be the ones that everyone else see as failures for him. Of the hits, only Thelma and Louise stands out for me – I’m still working through the Blade Runner Final Cut set hoping for an epiphany but it’s not looking good – add Hannibal and Matchstick Men and that’s about it for me.

With those last two in mind, particularly Matchstick Men, I actually looked forward to seeing this one, because it seemed to fit the magic mould. I’d much prefer to see Scott applying his technical sheen to a loopy, down to earth story like this than anything he did in Gladiator, American Gangster, and worst of all Kingdom of Heaven. The same goes for Russell Crowe – I don’t give a damn about the accent, I’d much prefer to see him as loose as he is here than his more commercially successful man act … I mean he truly glows in places of this movie, you can feel the France getting to him like it gets to anyone.

In short, I was far from let down. In fact, I barely stopped laughing for the whole movie. It’s barely got a thing to say worth saying, but like Matchstick Men it’s just an undeniably talented director (yeh, don’t get me wrong – I just don’t like most of his movies lol) letting rip on a story completely unworthy of that talent; and to me, the product is far more desirable than any of his more “worthy” feats. You can practically feel the breeze and smell the twilight air in some scenes here, rustic France probably hasn’t looked so inviting since Jean De Florette and Manon des Sources. The soundtrack is random as hell, the girls are beautiful, the wine’s surprisingly, hilariously rotten … what can I say but I’ll be coming back for more of this one for sure.