HD DVD Review: Mr Bean's Holiday

THE MOVIE: 2 1/2 stars out of 5

Rowan Atkinson returns to his role as Mr. Bean in this comedy from Universal. In short, Mr. Bean can’t believe his luck when he enters a raffle and wins a camcorder as well as a trip to the French Riviera. However, during his train trip from Paris to Cannes, Mr. Bean falls face first into a series of mishaps and fortunate coincidences, all of which are caught on his camcorder and are far fetched enough to ensure his own makeshift entry into the Cannes Film Festival.

As you can no doubt tell from my grade for the film, Mr. Bean is an acquired taste and not one I have acquired a taste for. Mr. Bean rarely speaks and when he does, he mostly mumbles. The comedy occurs with his many and varied facial expressions and idiotic pratfalls. Quite frankly, I found most of this film to be tedious. It was not until the last 15 minutes when the film became rather engaging and funny, rescuing it from an even lower score. If only the first 1 hour and 15 minutes of the film were as good as the last 15 minutes.

THE VIDEO: 4 5/8 stars out of 5

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1 and encoded with VC-1, this is a very strong effort on the part of Universal. This is a very good transfer with strong colors, excellent detail and very good blacks. The resulting image is crisp and clear with excellent depth. The colors really pop although they do tend to be rather on the orange side, especially the flesh tones. As this appears to be the intent of the director and is therefore not a fault of the encode. This is a strong effort on the part of Universal. Mr. Bean’s Holiday is presented as a HD-DVD/DVD Combo. I encountered no difficulties at all in my playback of the HD-DVD side. The issue that had plagued some prior Combo releases from Universal appear to have been resolved as the last several Universal Combo discs that I have viewed have played flawlessly.

THE AUDIO: 4 5/8 stars out of 5

The audio on this disc is as good as the video. Presented in Dolby True HD and Dolby Digital Plus, the audio track boasts a clear, smooth and open sound with excellent bass and dynamics. The surrounds are used effectively and often presenting an immersive sound field with pin point sound placement that was a pleasure to listen to. Considering the nature of this film, there is little to complain about the audio presentation here. Well done, Universal.

IN CONCLUSION

Mr. Bean’s Holiday boasts excellent audio and video which will be a treat for fans of the film. However, despite the quality of the presentation, I can only characterize this film as a rental as it was not my cup of tea.

For more high-def news and reviews, please click: TVPredictions.com.