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JOHNNY ENGLISH Send This Review to a Friend
Rowan Atkinson, one of the funniest of contemporary comic actors, is a master of droll expressions and bizarre body twists and turns, as fans of his Mr. Bean character know. He is at his most hilarious in "Johnny English," a wacky spoof on James Bond movies. The only supposedly top agent left in the British secret service, English is sent by default on a mission. He fancies himself a Bond-type hero but is thoroughly inept. It's tough to keep up a premise like that without running out of steam, but the screenplay by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade works with a minimum of lulls under Peter Howitt's direction, and Atkinson does the rest with belly-laugh results.
(Reviewed at Loews Lincoln Square)
He's an acquired taste, of course, not for those who look down their noses at silliness. The plot involves agent English's effort to stop a French charlatan from becoming the king of England in a power grab that will foster his business of building and running prisons. John Malkovich, with long hair and a deliberately overdone French accent, makes an amusing villain as the conniving Pascal Sauvage.
Naturally an agent a la Bond must have a woman involved, and Natalie Imbruglia as the beautiful and capable Lorna, who can come to the rescue when needed, is subjected to English's non-existent manly charm. Ben Miller plays Bough, the loyal, level-headed aide consistently trying to make up for English's stupidity and Tim Pigott-Smith is the agent's exasperated superior. The adventures are absurd, which is the point, and there are a few especially uproariously funny scenes, including when English shows up to try to thwart Sauvage's coronation. There's another when English climbs a well-like passage unaware of what is about to pour down on him.
Although the film goes in for the sort of toilet humor the British love, it doesn't contain the sexual grossness that characterizes the broad comedy Austin Powers flicks. Atkinson doesn't need that route. He can be extraordinarily funny just with his antics, and after seeing him, you may not be able to watch another Bond movie without thinking of what it might be like with Atkinson in 007's place. A Miramax and BBC Films release.
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