'Johnny English Reborn' rips off spy flicks
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Rowan Atkinson in 'Johnny English Reborn.'
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British humor is a many-splendored thing, though some variants are more splendid than others. The immortal Chaplin, of course, was a Brit. In sound films, I doubt whether any single comic will ever equal Peter Sellers or whether any group will ever surpass the collective genius of Monty Python. And in Tube Land, nobody is funnier than Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley of "Absolutely Fabulous." In my opinion.
Others may beg to differ -- and they can keep on begging. De gustibus non disputandam. That's Latin for, "The Dustbuster is broken." Or, "There's no accounting for taste."
I've never acquired one for Rowan Atkinson. Is that so very wrong? God knows I've tried. His "Mr. Bean" character spawned what is said to be the UK's most popular commercial TV comedy series ever. Mr. Bean never speaks. He's a silent childlike bumbler, who wreaks slapstick havoc wherever he goes, in pantomime. His persona always struck me as a kind of rip-off cross between Paul Reubens' Pee-wee Herman and Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot. But his two feature-film incarnations ("Bean," 1997, "Mr. Bean's Holiday," 2007) were generally considered charming.
- Starring: Rowan Atkinson (above), Gillian Anderson, Rosamund Pike.
- Rating: PG for mild action violence, rude humor, some language and brief sensuality.
If Mr. Atkinson is a borrower, the basic borrowee for his Johnny English is Don Adams. Johnny is Mr. Atkinson's version of the proverbial bungling secret agent who knows neither fear nor danger, and "Johnny English Reborn" is his second film adventure.
This time around, Her Majesty's Silliest Secret Servant must thwart an international cabal called Vortex from assassinating the premier of China. Johnny had vanished from the spy grid, on sabbatical but is recalled and reequipped with state-of-the-art gadgetry to unravel a plot that penetrates the KGB, CIA and MI-7 itself.
The first outing ("Johnny English" of 2003) stressed snappy repartee. This one relies more heavily on sight gags, opening with the low-speed chase of a guy who leaps over rooftops of buildings at a single bound, while Johnny -- never moving faster than a stroll -- takes the lift up and down. Best of the physical shtick here is the recurring appearance of an Asian granny called "The Killer Cleaner" (Pik-Sen Lim), whose vacuum sweeper comes with an array of lethal attachments, including a chainsaw.
First Published October 21, 2011 12:00 am
