Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Bean Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 17, 2018

Funny man Rowan Atkinson is a comedian of considerable talent. His television show Mr. Bean remains a genre staple and one of the finest and funniest programs of the 1990s. From that success stems Bean, a more Americanized, and largely American-set, film in which the title character portrays a bumbling English art gallery employee who is sent overseas to accompany a priceless painting. What could possibly go wrong? While the film generates plenty of laughs, they're almost entirely thanks to Atkinson's prowess for physical humor. The story has been dumbed down to essentials but that at least leaves room for Atkinson to work his magic. Situational comedy reigns as the character finds a way to inadvertently and entirely innocently lay waste to a man's family structure and threaten and destroy one of the art world's greatest treasures. It's a fun escape even if it's just a comedy sketch stretched to 90 minutes.

Mr. Bean (Atkinson) "works," read sits around and stares at paintings, for the prestigious Royal National Gallery in London. He's described as “the worst employee in the gallery’s history” but he's protected by the gallery's chairman, much to the collective chagrin of the board of directors. But he's chosen for a posh assignment which will send him across the Atlantic and across the United States to Los Angeles. He'll be accompanying the famous "Whistler's Mother," a work of art that recently sold to an American collector for $50,000,000. The work will be held in the highly regarded Grierson Art Gallery and Bean, in a effort to get him out of the National Gallery, is sent in the stead of a true scholar “of great weight and substance” to deliver a keynote address upon the artwork's American unveiling. The museum's Curator, David Langley (Peter MacNicol), believes Bean will be a fountain of valuable information and a prominent guest, whom he agrees to host in his own home, against his wife's (Pamela Reed) and children's (Andrew Lawrence and Tricia Vessey) wishes.

Upon arriving, it takes Bean little time to land in trouble, first with the police and later with David. His antics quickly drive away David's family, leaving him bunking with Bean in an empty house. But David keeps the faith, believing Bean to be eccentric, not a buffoon, and biding his time until he can eloquently speak on the work of art in David's care and under strict lock and key and tight security at the museum. Bean, however, does the unthinkable: he sneezes on the painting which leads to a series of misadventures that wind up destroying it. As David loses his mind and Bean panics with each new "solution" that only exacerbates the problem, he must hatch and execute a daring plan to somehow, some way, save the painting and his new friend from an inescapable personal and professional downward spiral.

Atkinson is terrific with the film’s physical comedy. He has a real gift for facial contortion and expression and an innate ability to perfectly match a look with a mood or feeling. Perhaps superficially the faces appear childish or simplistic but he truly tells the story through physical actions and appearances alone, which is critical considering that the character barely speaks beyond a necessary word or two here and there until the end, when he’s forced into a monologue about the painting at the center of the story. The physical antics and demeanor always lead to a laugh, even if the odd situation feels a little forced to simply stretch the film’s runtime a bit and stretch Atkinson's abilities as a performer, such as during a hospital scene near film’s end in which he inadvertently saves a gunshot wound patient on the operating table.

Bean gets in trouble from the grotesque (popping a bag full of vomit on a sleeping man) to the consequential (deciding to “play” with the LA cops by pretending to have a gun in his coat at the airport) and literally does nothing but bumble his way through the movie, in some way or another positively or negatively impacting everything and everyone that crosses his path. The funny part is that he’s entirely naive about himself, but he does, to his credit, immediately identify his stumbles and does what he must to mend his mistakes in some form or fashion, whether that’s frantically trying and save a priceless work of art or maneuver through a difficult situation to help David reunite with his emotionally distraught and, by the end, physically damaged family. Bean is an extremely likable character, one of the most agreeable “bumbling idiots” the screen has ever seen. There’s an unmissable charm on display, which the TV show finds with more regularity than the movie, but Bean does a good job of both introducing the character to a new audience and reinforcing the best traits that veteran fans have come to know and love over the years.

Peter MacNicol's David bears the brunt of Bean's antics and is essentially the conduit between the film and the audience. Most everything Bean does wrong runs through him, and it's by his reactions that the audience gains an appreciation for the weight the title character's bumbling antics bring down on the world around them, elevating them from humorous missteps to costly fiascos. David loses his family, the work of art, and his sanity, eventually, for sticking with Bean, eventually, at one point, wishing he would have never been born. But Bean makes amends -- accidentally, of course -- when he inadvertently and mindlessly steps in and saves the day, keeping David's family together after pulling it apart by no real fault of his own. It's all very simple stuff, but the support structure is really just a framework for Atkinson to strut his stuff for the camera.

Bean Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bean's 1080p presentation is not a work of art. It's besieged by edge enhancement, not in every shot but prominent in many places and obviously left over from the very dated DVD-era master used for the release. The image presents with extremely thick, chunky grain and various spots and speckles appear with some regularity throughout. Fortunately, the image does not suffer from any egregious noise reduction, and textures are resultant sturdy enough, enjoying good baseline complexity for a film-sourced video presentation. Faces and clothes find enough depth and detail to please, and the image appears decently filmic on the whole. Colors are neutral, neither standout nor dull, but nighttime black levels in chapter six are quite fine, appearing with good depth and minimal crush. This is certainly not the best Bean could ever look, though it's far from a disaster, and probably reaches as high as a 3.5 score at its best.

Bean Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bean features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The track is largely front-heavy with a few exceptions. A movie theater roller coaster ride delivers a healthy, forceful surround engagement. The scene's audio is not the clearest ever heard, but the forceful expansion is a welcome diversion from an otherwise straightforward listening experience. A turkey explosion 38 minutes into the movie sends a decent concussive blast through the stage, though forget anything like subtlety or precision. Music can be triumphantly large, the reveal of the painting in LA at the 42 minute mark being perhaps the best example. Again, clarity and fine sonic detail are not top priorities, but the raw impact is fairly satisfying. There's decent din when a gaggle of reporters assemble for the painting's debut in chapter seven. Dialogue dominates the film and it presents with healthy clarity and firm front-center positioning.

Bean Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Bean's Blu-ray contains no supplemental content. The release does not ship with a DVD, digital copy, or slipcover. No top menu is included. Blu-ray's don't get more bare-bones than this.

Bean Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bean cannot match the wry and physical humor of the classic television show, but it's a solid enough laugher that sees Atkinson doing what he does best, bumbling his way into adventure, stumbling through trouble, and putting together enough common sense to escape a sticky situation. The film plays more like a 10-minute sketch -- crazy man accidentally ruins a priceless work of art and frenetically attempts to set things right -- stretched out to film length, but it's not necessarily all that much worse for the extension. Good character interplay and plenty of funny bits elevate the material into a humorous escape that both Mr. Bean fans and newcomers alike should find to be a simple and agreeable distraction. Universal's featureless Blu-ray offers passable video and decent audio. Recommended.