Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)

I wonder who thought that now was a good time to bring back the character of Johnny English, a rather arrogant man who often has ideas he lacks the skill to turn into action, who views himself as superior to his global counterparts, despite consistently proving otherwise, and who seems stuck in a haze of past former glories that are formed from chance events, misconceptions, and moments of standing on the shoulders of others. On second thoughts, it makes perfect sense that this character came back now. But is this new movie any good?

Sort of.

The plot sees Johnny English (Atkinson reprising the role, of course) being the last resort, yet again, when a national emergency needs a hero to avert disaster. This time the disaster is caused by a cyber-criminal. English is reunited with Bough (Ben Miller), he has some classic gadgets to help him along, and also gets the chance to become smitten with a woman named Ophelia Bhuletova (Olga Kurylenko).

There are some good laughs to be had here, a couple of set-pieces made me chuckle throughout, but perhaps not enough to warrant an entire new adventure for the UK's most hapless spy (although, in fairness, this balances the character out between the useless man we first met and the more skilled agent of the second movie, albeit rusty after his years not being in active service). I will always laugh at a scene that has Rowan Atkinson dancing to an intense dance tune, but that can be done without a whole Johnny English movie framing it. Likewise, the sequence in which Atkinson dons a VR headset and causes havoc in London is a lot of fun, but also feels as if it could have been reworked within a better narrative.

Because for all it gets right, and director David Kerr (making his theatrical feature debut after a LOT of impressive TV work) certainly keeps everything moving along briskly enough, in line with the light and amusing script by William Davies (who also wrote the first film), there's an inescapable feeling that we've seen it all before, done better, or we're seeing something that could have been part of a much fresher experience. English is a character trotted out again when he should probably have been left in retirement, although that is a lot of what the film uses to get laughs.

As for the performances, everyone joins in with gusto. Atkinson and Miller make a good duo, once again, with the latter particularly entertaining during the many times he chooses not to comment after yet another disastrous episode or lapse in judgement. Kurylenko is the kind of glamorous and dangerous woman she can play in her sleep, Jake Lacy is a tech whizz who may just be the most obvious link to the cyber-terror, and Emma Thompson is a hoot as a Prime Minister who gets through each bad day with sheer force of will and canny decision-making. And alcohol.

Maybe slightly better than the first movie, especially during a wonderful opening sequence that shows English in his new role as a teacher, but not as good as the second, this is a third outing ultimately undone by how completely unnecessary it feels.

6/10
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Netflix And Chill: Johnny English (2003)

Movies come from many places. Original ideas (don't laugh, this does still happen occasionally, it's just not the source for 95% of the big names you'll see advertised at your local multiplex), TV spin-offs, tales springboarding from real events, and reworked board games. But very few other movies, if any, have been developed after a successful series of adverts. Beginning his life in a series of Barclaycard adverts, Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) was a comedic riff on the James Bond character. Never that savvy, pretty hopeless with the gadgets, and yet still trying to give off that image of unflappable cool, he was the kind of character that it would make sense to create a movie around.

The plot sees every other MI7 agent in the land killed during the funeral of one top agent (who died because of misinformation given to him by English). With nobody else available, English is tasked with keeping an event secure that will focus on a display of the Crown Jewels in the Tower Of London. Those jewels are stolen, which takes English on a journey that will lead him and his partner (Angus Bough, played by Ben Miller) on a collision course with Pascal Edward Sauvage (John Malkovich), a Frenchman who has been celebrated for a series of "superprisons".

Since making his feature debut with Sliding Doors, director Peter Howitt was, for the first few movies that had him in the big chair, a fairly safe pair of hands. None of his films were particularly memorable, but most of them did exactly what they were supposed to do. Johnny English sits perfectly among those titles.

What you have is a script by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and William Davies that feels incredibly light, focusing on a number of plot points while leaving a few spaces here and there in which Atkinson can do the kind of physical comedy that he does so well. It hits all of the required Bond-isms, not surprising as Purvis and Wade have been working on that franchise for the past twenty years, but doesn't do quite enough to make the comedic set-pieces as funny as they could be.

That's all pretty much left to Atkinson, who is good, but never great. Constrained by the suit he has to wear, Atkinson is left to bumble around like an inferior Inspector Clouseau, with too many of the jokes either obvious or just falling flat. There are minor chuckles throughout most scenes, but very few big belly laughs. Miller is excellent in the role of suffering assistant, however, and Malkovich clearly has a lot of fun with his role. You also get Natalie Imbruglia doing a decent job as the beautiful woman mixed up in everything somehow.

There's something to be said, of course, for entertainment of this nature. Genuinely fun for all, fairly inoffensive, and paced and timed almost to perfection. In that way, and with the 007-like music cues running through it, this works well. It just didn't make me laugh as much as expected, considering how much I often enjoy Atkinson's style of comedy.

6/10

Here's a triple-pack for you.
Americans can buy the same set here.