Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) makes his pitch to the Chairman of the Board (Sir John Mills)

Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) is a normally silent but spastic museum curator at the National Gallery, where he spends his time snoozing on a chair, apparently guarding the paintings. He's evidently not very good at his job because most members of the gallery's board want to get rid of him (he's described as "the worst employee in the gallery's history").

However, he has the support of the board's chairman (Sir John Mills), who thinks he's a "splendid young man", although why he feels this way remains a mystery.

Bean (Rowan Atkinson) flies to America

To be rid of him, at least for a while, the exasperated board members decide to send him off to Los Angeles where a small art gallery has requested a scholar "of great weight and substance" to speak at the unveiling of their latest acquisition, Whistler's Mother, described as America's greatest painting and just acquired from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris thanks to the donation of $50 million by a right-wing army general (Burt Reynolds).

Scarey Crocodile Bean-Head claims another victim.

From the moment he boards his transatlantic flight, Bean predictably brings chaos and destruction in his wake. In LA – where he's been invited to stay with the gallery's director, David Langley (Peter MacNicol) and his wife Alison (Pamela Reed), he proves to be a walking disaster area and it isn't hard to guess that even the valuable painting isn't safe when Dr. Bean (as the Americans call him) is in the vicinity.