Mr Bean's Holiday (PG)

Having wowed the world with his verbal dexterity on Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson invented a child-like buffoon character for the small screen. Although he considered Mr Cauliflower as a name, it was Mr Bean that stuck.

From 1990 to 1995, Mr Bean crashed his way through 14 calamity-filled half-hour episodes, then made his big-screen debut in 1997's Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie.

Mr Bean's Holiday has Bean's luck looking up. Winning a trip to the south of France at a church fete, he boards the Eurostar with dreams of sunning himself by the sea. However, it isn't long before disaster strikes. Bean finds himself without his tickets, money or passport, and having inadvertently kidnapped a young boy.

I have never been a fan of Bean, mainly because Blackadder is everything he is not. Whereas the Blackadder episodes are filled with memorable lines and colourful characters, Bean is simply the infuriating misadventures of a rubber-faced loon.

To be fair, Holiday does have its moments – a running gag involving random phone numbers is a hoot, a final traffic-jam setpiece is inspired, and the Hercules Returns-esque juxtaposition of soundtrack and footage is well crafted.

But there are far too few quality antics, and even the final full-cast lip synch appears lifted from that touchstone comedy, Lethal Weapon 4.

Director Benderlack (TV's The League of Gentlemen) moves the production along at a nice clip, but he can't hide the fact this is a series of set pieces.

An over-reliance on Bean's videocamera comes across as product placement for Sony Handicam, while the continuing recourse to musical interludes is surely an admission of a lack of ideas.

One of the Blackadder series' great strengths was its supporting characters, but here Bean mostly is left floundering on his own.

Bean is sometimes said to be the natural successor of Jacques Tati's comic creation, Monsieur Hulot.

As well as the title (Monsieur Hulot's Holiday was nominated for an Oscar in 1956), the filmmakers are at pains to pay homage to the French funnyman.

But this Holiday is more fromage than homage because while Tati's films consisted of elaborate, tightly choreographed visual gags and carefully integrated sound effects, underlined by mockery of French political and social mores, this is just the tiresome antics of a gormless man-child. Let's hope he is now consigned to being a has-Bean.