There’s a good reason for that, too. Johnny English was not very good. Stretching out a character from a credit card commercial to feature length film met with inevitable critical results. Yet the film actually turned into a reasonably sizeable hit. Perhaps the only surprise should be that the sequel didn’t come sooner. Furthermore, one or two players in the supporting cast, Dominic West in particular, are up for a bit of fun too. And while the likes of Gillian Anderson and The West Wing’s Richard Schiff are given crumbs of roles to work with, there’s little faulting the strength of the cast. Oliver Parker’s direction, too, has its moments. He tried to capture the feel and flavour of a Bond movie in places, and his more action-centric sequences work reasonably well. He’s got some decent locations to work with at times, and his work here is far superior to his muddled St Trinian’s movies. It carries around a script chock-full of contrived set-ups and bad jokes, and it’s a lead weight around the movie. No matter how much gusto Rowan Atkinson throws himself into things, it’s a virtually mirth-free 100 minutes that you get for your money. There’s nothing clever about the humour here, which isn’t a problem in itself, although it does fail to mine the many glorious opportunities that the Bond franchise in particular offers for spoofing. More damningly, even when it’s not trying to be clever, it can’t generate chuckles (it resorts to something that The Naked Gun did so much better, so many years ago, at one point). It’s a laboured British action comedy, that may just about entertain, but isn’t going to see those Facebook groups demanding a third movie anytime soon. But personally, in a year where The Inbetweeners Movie and Bridesmaids have shown that laughs of all kinds are possible to generate, I found Johnny English Reborn a real slog. What’s most disappointing about it is that Rowan Atkinson, a genuine, first class comedy talent, continues to do work such as this and the Bean movies. For those who remember his stand-up, and his still-unmatched portrayal of Blackadder, that’s perhaps the most tragic thing of all. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
