First off can I quickly say that I'll be giving away a few plot points which may spoil your enjoyment of this film. If you don't want to know what happens then GO AWAY!! I think the Teletubbies are on!

Right...

For me there has always been 2 Rowan Atkinson's in the world. What I call Good-Rowan and Bad-Rowan. The Good-Rowan who delivered amazing pieces of comedy in the televisual forms of "Not the Nine O'Clock News" , "Blackadder" and "The Thin Blue Line". Then there's the Bad-Rowan that appeared in crap like "Rat Race", "Scooby Doo" and "Bean the Movie".

Atkinson's latest effort is Johnny English. Based on the hapless secret agent in the Barclaycard adverts a few years back Johnny English is our last hope in stopping the British Monarchy being turned over to some mad French Man.

So where does Johnny English lie in terms of Good-Rowan / Bad-Rowan? Well... Its kinda in the middle! Its nowhere near the comedic genius of Atkinsons role as Blackadder, but its a million times better than his Bean efforts. In terms of film its a middle of the road effort. Not pushing me one way or the other, and sometimes that's the worst movie of them all. If you love a movie then you can come out raving. You get a response. Equally if you get a bad movie then you get the same response but from the different end of the spectrum. Johnny English left me feeling.....Meh!

Saying that tho I do have a big complaint with this film. The story...or lack thereof. I swear that when writing Johnny English they all sat around a desk, wrote down how they wanted it to start and how they wanted it to end and just filled the middle of the film with stuff that had nothing to do with the films ending.

The film begins with Pascal Sauvage, a French businessman and friend to the monarchy. Sauvage is gutted that years ago his family was pushed out of the monarchy line and secretly plans to rid the UK of its current Queen, become King and turn the UK into one big prison facility (Kinda like Australia but with crappier weather ). Fair enough!

So, with the aid of a few of his henchmen, Sauvage (for reasons to this day nobody still knows why!!) steals the Crown Jewels. So what does he plan to do with the Jewels? Sell them for millions on the black market? Maybe plant a little home made camera in them to see what the Queen gets up to in her spare time? No siree! While Johnny English chases all over town trying to get the Jewels back and slowly piecing together Sauvage's involvement in this Sauvage sends one of his henchmen into the Queens residence and forces her to sign a letter of abdication. This Leaves Pascal's family as the next in line to the throne. Then once signed and he's been officially declared next in line by the PM Sauvage proceeds to drop the Jewels off round the back of the police station and wait to be crowned. Now I've gotta ask. WHY? Why steal the Jewels in the first place? What purpose did it have? You were never gonna sell them? Your plan was to get the Monarchy !! All you've done is actually made JE suspicious of you!! You stupid git! It drives me mad...it really does!!

And the madness doesn't stop there. In order to make it official Sauvage needs to get the Arch Bishop on his side so he does this neat old Mission Impossible thing and clones the Bishops face and puts it on an impostor while JE looks on from the shadows. This was obviously just put in so it could be used as a gag later. Towards the end of the film JE bursts in on the crowning of Sauvage and proceeds to try and remove the face of the Bishop. For some reason tho this is the real Bishop!! Oh how fun! So what was the point in Sauvage setting up a fake one? Hmmmm.

Anyway. The jokes that are present are funny but it just annoys me that the script was put together by an ape drunk on Vodka (Probably supplied by Mystic). They wrote a beginning and an end and then picked the other scenes out of a hat! Its a shame cos it could have been so much better. A British version of Austin Powers perhaps?

I give this a 6.7 out of 10. Not Bad but not great either!

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You been babysitting again?

I think I'll go see this. It might be the thing that swings me a visit to "Seeing Double" lol

Looks funny, seen a few trailers, I like Rowan Atkinson, though not in his "bad" roles like you mentioned above.


Billy

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