JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN
UK, 2018, 88 minutes, Colour.
Rowan Atkinson, Ben Miller, Emma Thompson, Jake Lacey, Edward Fox, Charles Dance, Michael Gambon, Pippa Bennett- Warner.
Directed by David Kerr.
Is Johnny English the alter ego of Mr Bean or vice versa? At times it is hard to distinguish between the two in their presumptions, ignorance, displays of miming, misadventures.
And, of course, they are all Blackadder himself, Rowan Atkinson. After three films for television playing George Simenon’s Inspector Maigret, Atkinson returns to comedy, taking up the character of the inept British secret agent, Johnny English from the two previous films, Johnny English and Johnny English Reborn.
Success through ineptitude might be a slogan to promote this film!
We are in the 21st-century world of cyber espionage with attacks on British communication, air travel, London traffic control. And the film opens with all the secret agents being exposed, faces names and dates all coming up on the screen. Is there anyone from the past who could step into the breach and thwart the cyber-attacks? Three old codgers are called in – a humorous sequence with Michael Gambon, Edward Fox, Charles Dance, reminiscing about their past, but not surviving long enough to go into action. Which leaves Johnny English who has been busy at a high school instructing the students in all the techniques of espionage, forming the future generation.
The British Prime Minister is desperate. She is played in a kind of angry schoolmarm headmistress mode by Emma Thompson, channelling some of Margaret Thatcher and her reliance on American know-how and, in a more contemporary vein, some of the bewilderment and misjudgments of Teresa May.
Johnny calls up his old friend Bough, Ben Miller, genially serving Johnny English but, in fact, infinitely more competent! They receive clues that the sabotage is coming from the south of France, so off they go after visiting the modern equivalent of James Bond’s Q where English rejects all the newfangled stuff and, to the surprise of the new Q who is very young, wants a gun which they don’t stock and chooses an old-style sports car.
There are lots of jokes at Johnny English’s expense, preening with his car but neglecting to get petrol, wanting to get past a group of cyclists and firing rockets at them, encountering the main spy from Russia, a glamorous Olga Kuryenko, and avoiding her attempts to shoot him by taking some pills and getting on the highest of high, and extended dancing routine on the disco floor.
In the meantime, the Prime Minister has sought the help of a young American IT expert, Jack Lacey, who is fairly quickly revealed as the archvillain though the Prime Minister has no clue and invites him to a G 12 meeting where ends of all the nations will sign away their security rights to the villain.
There is an amusing scene where English is introduced to virtual reality, his walking through the villain’s mansion but he steps off the platform in the laboratory and goes out into the street causing mayhem in real life while he succeeds in the virtual.
Discredited in the eyes of the Prime Minister, there is nothing left to do but for English and Bough (who turns out to be married to the commander of a nuclear submarine!) to go to Scotland to the G 12 meeting and confront the villain. Again, a number of amusing scenes and English succeeding despite increasing ineptitude. One supposes that that there is a message there that British, this time MI 7, can overcome all obstacles despite…
Not a film for guffawing with laughter but continuous smiles and quite a lot of giggles.
