Johnny English Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)July 17th, 2003
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Can making a film based on a commercial be any more of a transgression than making one based on an amusement park ride? Personally, I'd rather see Teacups of Doom 2: The Spin Continues or Bumper Car Pile-Up: There's a Tooth in the Steering Wheel than Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl or Johnny English, the latter of which is a new feature-length film based on series of popular British credit card company commercials that featured a bumbling Rowan Atkinson sending up James Bond.
My screening of English was plagued with technical problems, which first showed the film with no sound and a backward image (for around five minutes), then with a normal image and no sound (for another five minutes). At the time, I was riled up because the entire audience had missed a significant chunk of the movie. In retrospect, however, I'm thinking it may have been a lot better if the projectionist had just ignored the trouble. English would have gone from being an unimaginative, laugh-free comedy to an avant-garde experimental film that bemoaned the Hollywood system's money-grabbing penchant for churning out remakes, sequels and spoofs of sequels.
As far as genre spoofs go, English is one of the worst - and keep in mind I've seen Jane Austen's Mafia. Even though I suggest taking Atkinson in very small doses (either via a television show or a small supporting role in a film - like Rat Race), I found him quite enjoyable in Bean. Atkinson just isn't nearly as funny in English, mostly, I think, on account of him having a lot more lines. His supporting cast isn't much better, with pop star Natalie Imbruglia reading her lines instead of acting, and John Malkovich leaving us all wondering the name of the mental condition that leads him to perform in crap like this.
Speaking of crap, English was penned by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who wrote the last two awful Bond films. That means they're incapable of spoofing themselves, which is a concept far more funny than anything you'll see in English.
1:28 - PG for comic nudity, some crude humor and language
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