Director: Oliver Parker

Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner

Starring: Rowan Atkinson (Johnny English), Gillian Anderson (“Pegasus”) Pamela Thornton, Rosamund Pike (Kate Sumner), Dominic West (Simon Ambrose), Daniel Kaluuya (Agent Tucker).

Running Time: 101 minutes

Certification: PG

Distributed: Universal

Review

So, the second instalment of the hit spoof, Johnny English. The film’s main character is of course Johnny English, played by the talented Rowan Atkinson, who is the only actor to return for this film from the prequel.  So, after an 8 year wait for this film, it’s finally here.

The film starts with English learning Martial Arts in the Tibet Mountains. He is then sent on a plane back to the UK to be reinstated as an agent for MI7. He has to be reinstated as 5 years ago, English “balls-up” some security that he was head of. He also lost his Knighthood that he gained at the end of the last film.

He is given the mission of preventing a assassination of the Chinese Premier. He takes the mission and is in search of three keys. He finds out the villain group for the movie soon into the start. From there, after researching and other things, English works out that a killing of an African President was only part his fault. However, from there, all the leads are dead, and English is accused of being part of the villain group. He goes into hiding, and then goes to try and save the day.

The movie is perfect for Action film lovers, but also comedy film lovers. Being a spoof of a James Bond movie, this installment focuses more on visual comedy moments, such as helicopter trimming, chopping hedges with helicopter blades.  However, this is different from the first, which was more towards witty lines, and witty actions.

The whole film is built into Rowan Atkinson. For example, Atkinson is known for his facial expressions, and one of the main characters is a Behaviour physiologist and a whole scene is about facial expressions. There are also a few scenes where he mistakes other elderly ladies for a “killer cleaner” who always make English appear bad in the most dreadful situations, but gives the viewers a good bit of comedy. However, this is just another all must focus on Atkinson scenes. It seems that it is Atkinson’s own film, with only supporting actors.

Although this is the case, it is still a brilliant film to go and see. It’s good as a family film, full of comedy and action to suit everyone. The story is good as well, however it doesn’t link the prequel into this film as well as they could have. Music wise, its good, but nothing special. It has the feeling that music was just set in the background, and no real thought went into it. CGI is good; for when the cable blows up, however it is possible to see that it was a CGI scene. However, overall it is worthy of 7/10 definitely, however the no linkage and music does bring the score down, so too with it being an “Atkinson Production”.

by Quintin Plane