He is always at his best when he does the worst-pulling the plug on somebody's best project, for example-and he does it with unfeigned innocence. The child in him may shock you for a while but then in no time you laugh your head off at his body language, his comic business. He is notoriously naïve: he is Mr. Bean.

As usual, nothing goes right with him in the movie Mr. Bean's Holiday. After having won a trip to Cannes and a camcorder, he sets out for his destination. In Paris, Mr. Bean with his idiosyncratic demeanour tries to have his way defiantly and you have the first real serving of fun. He goes to a posh restaurant and orders a dish he has had no idea of but when the dish is served he knows he cannot eat it. How he actually manages to get over the "crustacean meal" problem is something hysterically humorous to watch.

Mr. Bean then becomes the reason for separation between a Russian film director and his son. At the Paris Metro, he keeps the director busy with his camcorder while his son remains on the train soon to head for Cannes. When it is time for the train to depart Mr. Bean manages to get on it leaving the director behind. The misery of the Russian man, however, is not Mr. Bean's deliberate doing; it is as if some people are always bound to get jinxed when they are in his company.

Mr. Bean and the Russian boy together make for certain rare moments of comic experience, especially in the scene where both of them perform in the streets in a medley of tunes to raise money for their bus tickets. But then after having bought the tickets, Mr. Bean manages to lose them and somehow lands on a shooting spot where he wreaks havoc once again unawares.

Meanwhile the Russian director's son is thought to have been kidnapped and Mr. Bean is the suspect unbeknown to himself. The pair finally makes it to the Cannes Film Festival, where the father and the son are reunited and Mr. Bean goes on the rampage characteristically unintentionally.

The movie is sketched very carefully and despite its genre-pure comedy-it strikes at some inherent weaknesses of human nature. The idea of using a camcorder throughout the movie is simply ingenious; it helps create chiaroscuro in that the grandness and the seriousness of purpose in the Cannes Film Festival is exquisitely contrasted against the funny, purposeless exploits.

Director Steve Bendelack deserves credit for capturing vividly some of the outstanding and extremely hilarious moments. Nonetheless there are a few scenes that seem meaningless or tortuously stretched; one of them is when Mr. Bean is searching for the lost bus tickets.

Mr. Bean's Holiday has done great business in the UK and other parts of the world, except America. The reason for the huge success of the latest Bean movie is once again Rowan Atkinson himself, the born artist who has been playing the stupid man ever since he made his debut in 1989. His impeccable comic timing and unique style have made Mr. Bean markedly different from all other comic characters.

Atkinson studied electrical engineering at Oxford University but he was always interested in acting. In a recent interview, he said he felt Mr. Bean's Holiday might be his last movie. If what he said came true it would be a huge shock to Bean lovers. Worse still would be if someone else were to be cast in his place, for Atkinson is ever irreplaceable.

Oditi Shirleena Mostafa