imdb-319

While the beginning is quite OK, the movie goes down the drain soon.

It contains lengths, and lengths, and more lengths. As Bean deviates from his intended route to Cannes, so does the film. In a few scenes, it borrows heavily from Dumb & Dumber (even the music), and that's the best parts.

Half of the film consists of low-res, non-recognizable, blurry, wiggly dropouts, because it is filmed by Mr. Bean's in-film video camera.

The later music selection is awful and greasy. This movie is worse than "The Ring Thing", which was of similar filming and acting quality, but had one big advantage: it did not take itself seriously.

Especially in the second half, I laughed a lot in sheer disbelief: How could someone dare to release this crap?

If you would like to watch a similar, but way better, comedy about shooting a film with no budget, and have the same low expectations in action, special effects, production values as necessary for "Mr. Bean's Holiday", I wholeheartedly recommend "Bowfinger".

This film is mostly silent: No dialogs (nearly), no musical score, no background music, no narrator. There is no plot either. There is no rhythm in the editing, many scenes are duplicates, even including duplicate text boards.

Only the visible, white-wash side of a monastery is shown. The monks deliberately depict themselves praying in their cabin (merely a medieval prison cell), kneeing, studying, not speaking a single word, for the sake of God. Only on Sundays after lunch, monks are allowed to talk while going on a walk, but again, for the camera, dialogs circle around religious themes only. This is labeled a documentation, but it is a very superficial one.

After two hours, it got so repetitious and ridiculous (monks weekly shaving their already short-haired heads, while the barbers wearing beards to ashame Gimli the dwarf), that we left the projection room laughing while the other viewers were still watching in agony.

The one lesson we learned: How to appreciate our regular people's life using all our senses including hearing, touching, the ability to talk and to freely exchange our emotions and opinions.

This is a very impressive movie about the life of a teenager, living with his parents and sister in poor circumstances, starting a career in professional boxing. The camera art is beautiful and compelling, especially as it makes use of nicely filmed material during sunset using gyro cams, which is then used to show very ugly industrial zones and social housings!

The main characters (amongst others Daniel Brühl, one of Germany's best young actors) play very convincingly. I liked the set and the props, which seemed very realistic.

The script also had some interesting twists. Nonetheless, the main story is a little predictable.