“Mr. Bean’s Holiday”

2021946

Like the humble legume from which he takes his name, Rowan Atkinson’s disaster-prone Mr. Bean is an acquired taste — and best appreciated in small portions.

In "Mr. Bean’s Holiday," the character’s second big-screen adventure, the walking, hardly talking embodiment of Murphy’s Law bumbles his way through Britain and France after winning a church raffle — and a trip to the oh so classy south of France. (To say nothing of a pocket-sized video camera with which to capture magical memories.)

The sort of worldly traveler who thinks "Gracias" is haute French, Bean triggers an international incident when his desire to record every momentous moment of his trip inadvertently separates a Russian filmmaker (Karel Roden), en route to the Cannes film festival, from his son Stepan (impish Max Baldry).

Together, little boy Stepan and man-boy Bean encounter, among others, a megalomaniacally pretentious (or is that pretentiously megalomaniacal?) American (deadpan ham Willem Dafoe) and a winsome French actress ("Science of Sleep’s" Emma de Caunes). All of them, inevitably, wind up at Cannes, where — also inevitably — Mr. Bean emerges as the star of the show.

Those with an insatiable appetite for Mr. Bean and his crashingly predictable slapstick antics undoubtedly will relish "Mr. Bean’s Holiday."

The rest of us, however, will ponder the mysteries of Einstein’s theory of relativity as it applies to an 88-minute movie that seems to go on forever.

Of course, it would help if director Steve Bendelack and screenwriters Hamish McColl and Robin Driscoll didn’t borrow so much from other, better movies.

The title and premise recall Jacques Tati’s 1953 "Mr. Hulot’s Holiday," in which Tati’s hapless Hulot — another bumbling, inarticulate clown very much in the mold of such silent-screen treasures as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin — wreaks havoc at a seaside resort.

Some of the jokes in "Mr. Bean’s Holiday" are similarly recycled — especially the one in which Bean outraces a team of professional bicycle racers, a direct steal from Tati’s 1949 "Jour de Fete."

But nothing’s safe — not Charlie Chaplin’s "The Kid," not Alfred Hitchcock’s "North by Northwest," not David Lean’s "Lawrence of Arabia," not even the Farrelly Brothers’ "Dumb & Dumber."

That latter title, at least, accurately reflects the comedic impact of "Mr. Bean’s Holiday," which provides a suitable showcase for Atkinson’s rubber band-man physical clowning.

And there’s this one bright spot: Atkinson has said "Mr. Bean’s Holiday" will be the character’s final big-screen romp.

After enduring this particular jaunt, however, one question suggests itself: Was this trip really necessary?