Film Review: Johnny English Reborn

DESPITE what the title promises, comedy is still dead to Rowan Atkinson. The British comedian originally developed the Johnny English persona while prepping material for a series of credit-card ads at the turn of the millennium.

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DESPITE what the title promises, comedy is still dead to Rowan Atkinson. The British comedian originally developed the Johnny English persona while prepping material for a series of credit-card ads at the turn of the millennium.

A terrible film followed in 2003, in which Mr English was revealed to be a shoddy combo of a crap James Bond, a more talkative Mr Bean and Inspector Clouseau "wizzout ze Frahnch accent".

Now, eight years later, we have the marginally superior Johnny English Reborn. The sequel is better only because Atkinson has surrounded himself with some solid middleweight acting talent.

On a humour level, however, Reborn is a straight rehash. Moderately funny if you still laugh at people walking into stuff, falling off stuff, and having their private parts inadvertently collide with stuff. Chillingly unfunny if you don't.

Like the aftermath of a dog paying a visit to a tree, the watery formula devised by Atkinson trickles this way and that, but there's little point in watching where it's heading.

At fixed intervals, Atkinson's bumbling super-spy will make a ridiculous declaration (such as, "I am regarded as an expert marksman"). A few seconds will pass, and then the declaration will be disproved (cue accidental discharge of weapon, followed by hail of ricocheting bullets).

If anyone has a time machine, could you travel eight years into the future and tell us if Atkinson dares make Johnny English Reincarnated?

I know it's a long way off, but with Johnny English Reborn being so awful, we will need all the advance warning we can get.

Johnny English Reborn (PG)
Director: Oliver Parker
(St Trinian's)
Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Rosamund Pike, Dominic West, Gillian Anderson
Shut your eyes and don't think of English
1 Star