Johnny English

Johnny English – Inept MI7 agent, Johnny English, suddenly finds himself thrown in at the deep end as the sole agent tasked to figure out who plans to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. When they are taken from under his nose, English must redeem himself. Suspecting charismatic Frenchman, Pascal Sauvage, but with no evidence other than his dislike for the French and only his subordinate, Bough, and mysterious stranger, Lorna to depend on, can English stop Sauvage before his beloved country suffers a terrible fate?

Johnny English (2003) – Director: Peter Howitt

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=998648

Rating: PG

Running Length: 88 mins

Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Natalie Umbruglia, John Malkovich

Genre: Comedy, Action

REVIEW: ‘JOHNNY ENGLISH’

Taking a character from a series of British Barclaycard adverts, and putting him on the big screen, ‘Johnny English’ follows an obliviously incompetent British secret agent as he muddles through his first mission which pits the English against the French in the most predictable way possible. ‘Johnny English’ is clearly a parody of James Bond, replacing the suave, confident and capable agent with someone who thinks they’re all those things but are in fact bumbling and incompetent. The movie does convey an important message about not blindly following authority, even if Johnny’s reasons are simply because his suspect is French (non-Brits may not fully understand why an overly patriotic Englishman may hate the French so this message could get lost in translation).

Rowan Atkinson has many alter egos but perhaps his most famous is Mr Bean; Johnny English is basically a secret agent, articulate Bean and while his silly antics are amusing and sometimes downright hilarious, the daftness does begin to grate. Ben Miller is the reliable and inevitably more capable assistant, Bough but is sadly underused in favour of the gorgeous, mysterious Lorna (played by Natalie Umbruglia) who is pleasant enough but ultimately too bland to make much of an impact and her unbelievable respect and romantic interest in English (even when his incompetence is self-evident) makes their connection somewhat cringeworthy.

Although ‘Johnny English’ is undoubtedly funny in places, it doesn’t have enough punch to make it the comedy it promised to be. Kids will likely enjoy the slapstick and silly humour but even then are likely to get a little bored of the one-trick-pony plot before the end and the enjoyment from adults very much depends on their taste in comedy as the gags are not exactly universal.

CONTENT: IS ‘JOHNNY ENGLISH’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

Agent One, who Johnny English looks up to, visits him for details of an upcoming mission. He asks Johnny if the correct information is in there, specifically data relating to a submarine hatch and Johnny reassures him that he has double checked everything. The next scene has a written mission report on-screen which states ‘Agent One killed’ due to him being unable to open a submarine hatch. While he clearly doesn’t realise it, Johnny is entirely responsible for Agent One’s death.

When trying to look inconspicuous, Johnny pats up and down a red curtain. As he moves along he watches something else and as there is a woman standing next to the curtain he accidentally continues, patting from the bottom of her dress upwards causing her to gasp in shock. While he obviously didn’t mean to do this, he does not apologise and do anything to reassure the woman that his actions were accidental.

While on the chase of the suspects, Johnny finds himself at a funeral and, believing it to be a ruse, he begins to mock the people there and even dances on top of the coffin much to their horror. His subordinate, Bough, salvages the situation by pretending that Johnny is mentally ill and that he is there to return him to the hospital.

A man impersonates the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and there is a close-up of the top of his bottom which sports a tattoo saying ‘Jesus is coming – look busy’. Later in the movie, the real Archbishop of Canterbury is mistaken for the imposter; he is bent over and has his bottom exposed to not only a shocked audience but it is also televised worldwide. This is shown fully onscreen for around 10 seconds, this is done for a comedic moment and is not sexual in any way.

A female character says to Johnny ‘I suppose you’ve made love to lots of women’, and she tells him that its been three years since she last ‘made love’.

CAN I SEE A CLIP?

VERDICT: IS ‘JOHNNY ENGLISH’ FOR KIDS?

‘Johnny English’ mostly has jokes too silly enough for older kids but the (albeit mild) sexual innuendo makes it a movie for older viewers so it struggles to pitch itself to any particular age group. We feel it is mostly appropriate for kids aged 6 and over but recommend caution for the infrequent spattering of mild sexual references.

• Violence: 2/5 (mostly slapstick or mild action-style fight scenes)
• Fear Factor: 0/5
• Emotional Distress: 0/5
• Sexual Content: 1/5
• Bad Language: 1/5 (some infrequent cursing)
• Dialogue: 1/5 (the theme song includes the line ‘Never prematurely shooting his load’)
• Other Notes: Deals with themes of espionage, incompetence, tenacity, knowing when to go against orders, trust and patriotism.

Words by Laura Record

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