Star Rating:

Johnny English

Actors: Kevin McNally, Ben Miller, Douglas Mcferran, Tim Pigott-Smith

Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001

Running time: 90 minutes

A broad-brush pastiche of James Bond, Johnny English sees Rowan Atkinson playing the comically inept title character. The last spy in Britain after a terrorist attack, Johnny is assigned to protect the crown jewels. Once they are stolen, it's up to English, his faithful assistant Bough (Miller) and a foxy Interpol spy (Imbruglia) to find out who nicked them. All the evidence points to a French industrialist called Pascal Sauvage (Malkovich sporting a foolish wig which helps to deflect attention from his awful accent). Apparently, Pascal wants to become King of England and it's up to English (geddit? Pshaw!) to save Queen and country.

With humour so broad you could build a small housing estate on it, Johnny English is drafted straight from the old school of humour, stock issue slapstick and a hefty recycling of predictably bawdy gags, which most audiences over the age of seven will be familiar with. Still, it's harmless fluff and the actors themselves appear to be having a laugh. This sort of thing comes as second nature to Atkinson (Bean and those Barclay card ads have provided sufficient training), while Malkovich gets to utilise yet another in his arsenal of ridiculous accents. But this time you're supposed to be laughing at it. Whether you do or not is entirely up to you.