Johnny English fights evil with swift kick to funny bits

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This article was published 21/10/2011 (5460 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He’s Bean. Mister Bean, and even though his name is Johnny English in this send-up of all things Bond, Rowan Atkinson isn’t one for making subtle dramatic turns. They’re more like comedic 360s, and either you like to watch him on his Sit ‘n’ Spin, or you don’t.

There’s really no middle ground. So for those who like their comedy with a little hydraulic-chair humour, and more Brit-twit than you can shake a shtick at, then this is your Fifth Symphony of farce.

Atkinson knows his notes, and in this latest round as Johnny English, the perpetually bumbling British super-agent, he plays them with a great deal more restraint than he did in the original.

Granted, the movie opens with endless shots of Johnny English getting it in the nuts, but it’s all in good narrative form, because it’s showing us just how much Johnny has changed over the past eight years.

Banished from MI5 after a mission gone horribly wrong, Johnny heads to a remote monastery, where he learns the art of self-control, patience, and the most demanding of all Zen arts, taking a kick to Buddha’s bells without flinching.

He’s in the midst of mastering his studies when he’s rehired by his former agency, now called MI7, and assigned to protect the Chinese head of state.

English believes he has it all under control, but he’s a born buffoon. He’s destined to screw up all over again —- and he promptly does.

Because the whole movie is so closely modelled after the Ian Fleming-born franchise with the sexy men in tuxes, Johnny English scores the most points when it’s shaving the five-o’clock shadow off the Bond icon.

Atkinson is especially nimble at this surprisingly complex dissection of Cold War-born bravado. His arrogance and pride in the Empire is always palpable, and his know-it-all approach to everything stacks up to endless sight gags — especially when we take the mandatory tour of the gadget room.

Before you can say watch out for that pen, English has blown up half the lab, and that’s exactly what we expect from this big-budget version of Maxwell Smart meets Inspector Clouseau.

It’s dependably moronic, but there is real intelligence lurking beneath the laminate floorboards of cliché, because Atkinson does touch on the First World’s domination of world affairs and industrial power.

When we watch Gillian Anderson do her best Judi Dench as agency head, she plays it so straight, we can feel the threads of entitlement sewn into her character.

Everyone believes they know best in this movie. Everyone has a colossal ego, and everyone feels licensed to kill.

Atkinson kneads this ball of subversive political commentary like a kid with Play-Doh. It all looks so childlike and innocent, you don’t really process the implications, except when we get an obvious wink to old English assumptions such as: “He can’t be guilty. . . . He went to Eton.”

Because it’s all quite gentle, and family-oriented, we’re spared the usual sexual debasement of the female characters so common to the genre. We’re also spared the body count and graphic violence.

To Atkinson’s credit, there’s a hint of maturity to our hero that takes some of the irritation out of the mix, but without a strong script to really exploit the increased range, it’s largely imperceptible.

Not that it matters. Johnny English still plays to the lowest common denominator, and that means it hits the universal funny bone with every swift kick to the hacky sacks of manhood.

— Postmedia News

Movie Review

Johnny English Reborn

Starring Rowan Atkinson and Rosamund Pike

Grant Park, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne

PG

101 minutes

Two and a half stars out of five

Other Voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of Johnny English Reborn.

A redundant spy farce sequel that’s less of a rebirth than a retread.

— Meghan Lehman, Hollywood Reporter

After this second assignment, Johnny’s licence to thrill has been revoked.

— Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo

Garbage.

— Antonia Quirke, Financial Times

The most exasperating thing about Johnny English Reborn is that it isn’t quite as awful as you might expect.

— Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

Proves you really can have too much of something that wasn’t particularly amusing in the first place.

— Neil Smith, Total Film

The farcical goings-on vary from genuinely chucklesome to pretty feeble, but Atkinson’s blithely confident blunderer continually raises a smile.

— Jason Best, Movie Talk

It’s difficult to know in the year 2011 what such a movie is for.

–Philip French, Observer (U.K)

As an outright comedy this falls short but as an easy-to-watch, old-fashioned slice of British entertainment this is good solid family fun.

— Alex Zane, Sun (U.K.)

Even though the film is critically weak, it will be family strong.

–Graham Young, Birmingham Mail

I haven’t laughed so hard since Bridesmaids.

— David Edwards, Daily Mirror (U.K.)

–Compiled by Shane Minkin