Bean

Rowan Atkinson's TV series Mr Bean enjoyed worldwide syndication, and this feature revamps the familiar material: the coffee joke, the tongue-shaving sequence, the falling-asleep-on-head joke, and the exploding air-sick-bag (very graphic). Mr Bean, a security guard at the National Gallery in London, is selected to travel to California as the gallery's representative at the unveiling of 'Whistler's Mother'. His host (MacNicol) is expecting London's finest art scholar. The jokes have a variable strike rate, and there are times when you feel that everyone's just treading water before the next big set-piece. Still, Atkinson's on peak form, witness the hilarious but risky public loo gag. The theme - a strange man in a strange land - is quite amusing too. It's just that, well, it's all a bit of a yawn.