Bean (1997)
A movie review by Michael J. Legeros
Copyright 1997 by Michael J. Legeros
(Gramercy)
Directed by Mel Smith
Written by Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll
Cast Rowan Atkinson, Peter MacNicol, Pamela Reed, Tricia
Vessey, Andrew Lawrence, Harris Yulin, Sandra Oh, Tom
McGowan, Burt Reynolds, Larry Drake
MPAA Rating "PG-13"
Running Time 90 minutes
Reviewed at Six Forks Station Cinemas, Raleigh, NC (07NOV97)
==
BEAN is bad, maybe unwatchable, as Rowan Atkinson's beloved Brit is shoehorned into a pedestrian, poorly executed plot involving a famous painting, a Los Angeles art gallery, and a classic case of mistaken identity. (You Know Who is believed to be... an art expert.) The "Bean bits"-- tampering with an amusement ride, pretending to have a firearm in an airport, drying the front of his trousers with a restroom blow- dryer, etc.-- arrive at infrequent intervals and too often consist en- tirely of reaction shots. Instead of just pointing the camera at Bean and letting him do his thing, the filmmakers shift the focus to the supporting stars and, by in large, that's a mistake. (Okay, it *is* pretty funny when Peter MacNicol's art curator goes nuts, after Mr. Bean has his way with Whistler's Mother.) Worse is how Bean's scenes always seem rushed. He never gets to do more than three minutes of anything, if that. Even his most-elaborate routine-- a nighttime, commando-style raid on the museum-- flies by at about four times the pace that it should. With Harris Yulin, Pamela Reed, and in a late and largely use- less cameo, Burt Reynolds.
Grade: D
-- Mike Legeros - Movie Hell http://www.nonvirtual.com/hell
-- Mike Legeros Corporate Training SAS Institute Inc, Cary, NC, USA, Earth legeros@unx.sas.com (w) legeros@pagesz.net (h) Everyone who ate apples in England in 1850 later died.
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