you would think that this film's dismal failure would be due to american filmmakers getting hold of a brilliant british comedy and " americanizing " it . you'd be wrong , since full blame can be placed on the very folks who wrote and created the series : rowan atkinson , robin driscoll , and richard curtis . should you ever happen to meet those chaps , do me a favor . grab them by the hair and yell really loudly in their ear , " what were you thinking ? ! have you ever heard the phrase 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' ? ! " then walk away . the film concerns mr . bean ( atkinson ) and his visit to america while escorting the painting of " whistler's mother " to an american buyer ( played by burt reynolds , in the type of bit part that his success in " boogie nights " should hopefully do away with ) . now how or why mr . bean is sent on this trip makes no sense , and i can't even describe how the film explains it . the point is that mr . bean comes to america and causes wacky trouble . problems problems problems , where to begin ? first , the score music from the tv show has been completely replaced by score that is either at times one note away from the score from " beetlejuice " or one note away from the score from " rob roy " . then , the song choices are totally uninspired . " good vibrations " ? " i love l . a . " ? wow , don't put any thought into that guys . also , bean makes way too much noise in the film . the character doesn't speak much , but in the series you really only heard the laughter of the audience , and maybe the occasional murmur from mr . bean . each episode was like a chaplin silent movie . in the film , bean is constantly moaning , grunting , whining , etc . it's annoying , and just plain wrong for the character . the main problem though is that it's just not funny . with each episode of the series there would be dozens of really great laughs crammed into less than 30 minutes . multiply that running time by three however , and the laughs steadily decrease . they even have the gaul to repeat jokes from the series . sad , and creatively lazy . as a series , " mr . bean " only ran for about 13 episodes or so . why on earth did atkinson and the gang decide it was time to completely rework everything ? 13 half-hour episodes certainly hadn't exhausted all possible situations . all i can say positively for the film at this point is that it's almost appropriate for all ages , if it wasn't for a couple of scenes where it appears as though mr . bean is having sex with things . and even that isn't a very positive statement . please guys , go back to england and go back to television so you'll make me laugh again . [pg-13]
