Man Vs Baby: A Review of the New Series

Man vs Baby is a sweet Christmas story, but it partly fails as a comedy. Despite some genuinely funny moments, the jokes often fall flat.

Rowan Atkinson is back at Netflix with a new comedy series – Man vs Baby. It’s a follow-up to the 2022 series Man vs Bee. The four episodes are released today on Netflix.

STORY

Man vs Bee was a lot of fun, so I was obviously looking forward to this follow-up. This time, Trevor Bingley (Rowan Atkinson) is hired to look after a luxury penthouse in London over the Christmas holiday. However, he comes with an unexpected companion – a baby that was left alone at the school nativity with no one coming to collect him. On paper, the premise has everything for a great comedy, with chaos all around, especially since Rowan Atkinson wrote it with William Davies (the writer of the Johnny English films). But the results aren’t what could have been expected here.

Indeed, too many of the comedic scenes didn’t actually make me laugh. The jokes often fall flat or don’t go far enough to get a laugh from their audience. It’s a slapstick comedy; it shouldn’t be afraid to exaggerate things. It is at its best when the comedic situations are exaggerated. This is when the series makes me laugh. And some scenes are genuinely funny. In fact, some scenes remind me of the humour from the Johnny English films, Man vs Bee, and Mr Bean. Unfortunately, there are not enough scenes like these. Instead, the series ends up being more sweet than comedic. While it partly fails as a comedy, it surely works as a Christmas tale. And that’s a shame because it’s good, but it could have been a lot more than just good.

So, should you still watch this series? Yes, it’s Christmas season, so it’ll be an enjoyable watch for everyone in the family, but don’t expect something that will make you laugh out loud continuously like Atkinson’s previous works.

CAST

Moreover, Rowan Atkinson remains one of the greats of comedy. When you watch his performance in this series, it makes no doubt that he still has it. His facial expressions and his gestures are still what they used to be. He knows how to make people laugh with a simple facial expression in reaction to a situation. This is precisely why it’s disappointing that the material doesn’t follow his comedic skills.

VERDICT

Man vs Baby is a sweet Christmas story, but it partly fails as a comedy. Despite some genuinely funny moments, the jokes often fall flat, and the comedic situations are not exaggerated enough to elicit laughs from the audience. Nevertheless, Rowan Atkinson’s performance still reminds us why he is one of the greats.