Mr Bean's Holiday review

More tatty than Tati, Rowan Atkinson’s homage to Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday only shows how far his accident-prone prat lags behind the silent comedy giants he so slavishly imitates. It’s not exactly a recommendation to say Steve Bendelack’s sequel improves upon Mel Smith’s 1997 original (it could hardly do otherwise) or that he makes the most of some scenic French locations. It certainly doesn’t say much for his screen-hogging star that he isn’t the funniest thing in the movie, coming a poor second to Willem Dafoe’s egotistical film director. Isolated moments of physical invention – Bean’s oblivious stroll through Paris traffic or his desperate attempts to stay awake at the wheel – offer little relief from a tedious, repetitive whole that merely underlines how unsuited this one-joke character is to feature-length material.