OK, so I had a few hours between classes today and there was nothing else on in the middle of the day even remotely worth watching. I refuse the watch The Smurfs. I do have standards.
Oliver Parker has directed the recent adaptations of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest and An Ideal Husband. He even directed Morpheus in Othello. The screenplay was written by William Davies who also wrote the first Johnny English film, and Hamish McColl who wrote Mr. Bean's Holiday.
More Bean than Bond, Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson - Johnny English), ex-MI7 agent, is getting all guru-ey and stuff in Tibet and dragging rocks around with parts of his anatomy that should never be used to drag rocks around. He had a mishap in Mozambique (cue music) and someone very important died because of it. As it would happen, MI7 (now sponsored by Toshiba...) (stupid budget cuts) want him back for a mission only he, and quite possibly a few thousand other agents, can do.
Head of MI7 is Pegasus (Gillian Anderson with Brit accent) (again). She teams English up with handsome devil Simon Ambrose (Dominic West - Centurion) to get to the bottom of a conspiracy to kill someone very important from China. Behavioural psychologist and out-of-his-league love interest Kate (Rosamund Pike - Made in Dagenham) is there for romantic purposes and some psycho-techno jargon.
Bumbling as ever, English finds his way in, and out, of situations by utilising what he learned in Tibet. With age comes great wisdom, none of that responsibility crap. Naturally, he saves the day and even gets the girl. Spoiler? No, formula.
It was a fun way to pass the time, there are a some good jokes here and there. Rowan Atkinson still makes me laugh after all these years. What a guy. I'm sure Jeremy Clarkson would be drooling over the new Rolls Royce Phantom, the 'Rolls Royce of Rolls Royces' with its V16 engine and oodles of buttons to push, and now let's hand it over to our tame racing driver...
Stay till after the credits, there's a cool scene with Atkinson cooking dinner to Grieg's In The Hall of the Mountain King. Take that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross!
Things I learnt: Parkour is for pussies; never trust old Chinese cleaning ladies; does anyone really want to trade in US dollars anymore?
Word up.
Six out of ten.
Nice to know you have some standards avoiding the little blue people, even if Johnny English Part Deux has slipped in. This just looks so, so bad and everytime I see the former Dana Scully in TV spots it makes my undying love for her lessen each time see says "Thats my mother!". I caught some of the original on TV the other week, it really hasn't improved with age. What was Malkovich, Malkovich thinking?! Anyway, I'm glad you braved this flick as you'll have to drag me into the multiplex kicking and screaming, kicking AND screaming I tells ya! Great read of a review young lady, as usual.
ReplyDeleteThanks dear : )
ReplyDeleteIt's school holidays here at the mo' so lots of kiddie flicks on during the day... that's my excuse anyway.
Wasn't the 'That's my mother' bit ripped off from Austin Powers? Am sure I remember Basil Exposition bellowing that line...
All good actors must do crap films, tis the law... so it would seem.