JOHNNY ENGLISH

Starring:
Rowan Atkinson
John Malkovich
Natalie Imbruglia
Ben Miller
and Tim Pigott-Smith

Director:
Peter Howitt

Running Time:
89 mins

Out to buy on DVD 11th August

After the death of all the best British secret agents, the Ministry of Defence has to turn to their only remaining operatives, Johnny English (Atkinson) and his assistant Bough (Miller). Their assignment is to guard the newly restored Crown Jewels but when they are stolen from right under their noses, the bungling pair start their investigations and come up with only one suspect, French billionaire Pascal Sauvage (Malkovich). The problem is that no one believes that Frenchman could be behind such a dastardly crime, so it is up to Johnny English to find the evidence.

The Naked Gun meets Mr Bean as Rowan Atkinson brings his credit card advert creation to the big screen.

Based on the successful Barclaycard adverts from the early 90s, MI7 agent Johnny English and his assistant Bough are given a movie of their own and to be honest it is abit of a waste of time. The jokes are predictable and unoriginal, the performances are over-the-top and everything is too dumbed down to appeal to an older audience.

There is no denying that Rowan Atkinson is a talented comic actor, you only have to watch any of the Blackadder series to realise that but without a decent script the man can not perform miracles. Atkinson does his best with the material and excels in the scenes involving physical comedy but most of the time his character is just plain annoying and it just an amalgamation of Mr Bean and Edmond Blackadder. The character just doesn't have any individuality to make him standout from any of Atkinson's other creations.

John Malkovich sports an extremely dodgy French accent and is so over the top that he just becomes plain annoying by the end of the picture. Natalie Imbruglia does nothing more than look beautiful and never gets the chance to show she can actually act. Ben Miller plays Bough just as dumb as Johnny English, were in the original adverts he was the brains of the pair.

A predictable script and very structured jokes let this movie down badly. Gags are telegraphed and you spend your time just waiting for the punch line to arrive. When it does it isn't that funny anyway. Rowan Atkinson is let down again by a lacklustre script and I expected more from director Peter Howitt after the excellent Sliding Doors. In the end what we have is an exceedingly average movie that is instantly forgettable. Rowan Atkinson should just ring Ben Elton and Richard Curtis and get them to write a Blackadder movie now.

'The Making Of Johnny English' programme, 'Self-Defence Techniques' featurette, Character profiles, Observation test, DVD-Rom features: Downloads / Spy Challenge / Spy Profiler / Identikit, Interactive menu & Scene access


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2003