A feature-length blowup of a TV sketch character well known to fanciers of British imports on PBS. To nonfanciers just now meeting him, Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) might be remindful at times, in his childlikeness and mischievousness and even in his exact facial expressions when peering over or around his rodenty snout, of Pee-wee Herman; and also, in his extended sequences of nonverbal slapstick, of Peter Sellers in collaboration with director Blake Edwards (The Pink Panther, The Party, etc.). At the same time, he lacks the innocence and fancifulness of the one (poo-poo and puke jokes are permissible), and, with Mel Smith in the director's chair, lacks the skilled cinema technician of the other. And Peter MacNicol, as Bean's overburdened host in America, proves to be a surprisingly firm-footed straight man and magnetic object of sympathy. Even, however sacrilegious it may be to Beanatics, a light-fingered scene stealer. Pamela Reed, Harris Yulin, Burt Reynolds. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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