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Movie Views...with Mark Moorehead
A little ‘English’ goes a long way in satisfying summer spoof

Johnny English

General Audiences:  B

Nothing objectionable unless you’re French. Comedy  loaded with slapstick and one-line zingers from British comedian Rowan Atkinson (a.k.a. Mr. Bean).

Family Audiences:  B

Film contains a few scenes of bawdy humor, including brief exposure of a man’s posterior and just a few off-color words that explain the PG rating. Otherwise, acceptable family fare for older children.

 

Popular British comedian Rowan Atkinson offers up an extremely silly but serviceable comic escape from this summer’s parade of mind-numbing, digitized kung fu film fare.

The cast also includes John Malkovich and the beautiful Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia.

Atkinson, best known for his role as the bubbling Mr. Bean, spoofs James Bond-style spy flicks and takes aim at the French in his new film.

Mild-mannered Johnny English (played by Atkinson) is a desk jockey in the employment of British intelligence (an oxymoron?), whose ineptitude causes the death of its top agent number one.

Shortly thereafter all the remaining veteran agents are assassinated in a single explosion during agent number one’s funeral where English is charge of security.

With no one left in the coop to protect the chickens, English is suddenly promoted to top agent and charged with protecting her Majesty’s crown jewels. \

Naturally the crown jewels disappear, and English begins his Clouseau-like search for the villain who has taken them.

Agent English immediately suspects billionaire Pascal Sauvage (overplayed by John Malkovich) and fails to conceal his contempt for everything French by telling his co-star, “The only thing the French should be allowed to host is an invasion.”

Bush supporters will howl when they hear this.  Unfortunately, Malkovich sports a French accent that is not only not funny but so bad you can’t understand him through most of the film.

Malkovich’s character, a madman with a royal family pedigree, executes a plot to be crowned king of England and turn the British Isle into a giant, privately run penal colony that will generate billions in income.

The blundering but loyal agent English attempts to outwit Sauvage at every turn.   English is arrogant and inept, denying his role in wreaking havoc wherever he goes.  And, without his junior partner Bough (perfectly underplayed by Ben Miller) quietly and expertly protecting English from himself, English would be back at his desk. 

Sensing the British Secret Service could use some help, Interpol Agent Lorna Campbell (played by singer Natalie Imbruglia) comes to the rescue.

Campbell has an unnatural attraction to the floundering English, confirming that beauty and brains are in the eye of the beholder as she stares into his eyes and says, “In spite of your idiotic behavior and odd looking exterior there lies a sincere and determined man; that’s what I’m attracted to.”

By the end of the film Johnny’s in love and tries to push all the right buttons.

While never as funny as it thinks it is, Johnny English still provides enough laughs during its brief 90 minutes to leave you in an upbeat mood and wearing a smile on your face. Unless, of course, you’re French.

Pecan Grove Estates resident Mark Moorehead writes regularly for Wrangler News.

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