Universal/Universal .
R4 . COLOR . 84 mins .
PG . PAL
Feature
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Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is James Bond’s retarded half brother by another mother and a liaison with a giraffe. You could almost think of him as 0014.2, licensed to crap his pants at the first sign of danger and walk into an open manhole.
Ah, so that's where my career went...
It’s far too easy to say this is Mr. Bean working for the British Secret Service, but then nearly all Atkinson’s characters with the exception of his part in The Tall Guy have been a variation of Bean. In fact, making things worse, not only is this Mr. Bean does Bond, it’s actually based on a series of British television ads. Films based on theme park rides, films based on television commercials, what next? A film based on the cooking instructions on a pack of two minutes noodles? Brendan Fraser is in hot hot water in the Summer smash hit, The Noodle Man!
(Note to Hollywood: I want a million bucks for the idea if you like it. And a bit part as the guy in the shop who whispers to Brendan “Hey buddy, I’ve got champignons in my jocks... spread the word.”)
Thrust into the world of international espionage, he battles wits with Frenchman Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich with yet another accent that sounds like Malkovich doing a deliberately bad accent) who plans to take over the British throne. With all the other preferable spies working for the Secret Service dead, English is reluctantly put on the case. Naturally, Sauvage will have a bumbling fool like J.E. killed at once and his plan will succeed. Except this is a big-budget-comedy-blockbuster-popcorn-film-a-go-go. Sauvage will be humiliated, English will get the girl and become a real superspy and there’ll be a sequel, Johnny English 2: Thunder Nuts, out next summer.
The heavily hyped inclusion of Natalie Imbruglia didn’t do a thing for me. I didn’t find her attractive, appealing or seductive. She’s a bit of a dead fish, really. Typical Bond girls exude sexuality in their every movement. Imbruglia, with her slapper Aussie/English hybrid accent, fat lips and deadbeat eyes manages to join the ranks of Denise Richards and Halle Berry as the non-sexiest Bond Girls ever, even if she’s not in a Bond film. Hopefully she never will be either.
Credit where credit is due, there are moments where they try valiantly to lift the spectacle above its station, and it breaks free of the sketch comedy drill for a few brief minutes, but typically it comes crashing back down to Earth with a THUD accompanied by Atkinson pulling one of his trademarked unfunny rubber faces for effect.
You’ve seen all his shtick here countless times before, the physical comedy, the obvious gags, Mike Myers got to the big screen with this stuff first, and he did it better. With this effort, you have to wonder (should you find that you can’t find anything more pressing to think about) whether there’s a market for another entry into this race. Me thinks a firm ‘No, please.’
Suave, sophisticated, debonair, ugly as sin.
Johnny English, like Atkinson himself, is an acquired taste. I’d suggest you let that guide your ownership decision. If you’ve enjoyed anything by Atkinson in the past, you might have a giggle or two at this, but if you think his time has come and gone then you might want to revisit an actual Bond film, as they send themselves up far better than any spy spoof.
Video
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If on the odd occasion you can drag your brain away from the film (which shouldn’t be too hard) and take a proper look at the quality of the picture, you’ll see that it looks pretty stunning in its own way.
Not being a long film they’ve had plenty of space to give it all the room it needs to really open up, with a very high bitrate from go to the layer change, which then only drops off marginally after that point. Colours are punchy and rich, from the brightest whites to the darkest blacks it goes without saying that it reveals plenty of depth and detail, and the picture is sharp as a tack with a pleasant level of grain that visually puts you back in the cinema.
The only let down is the aliasing, which although extremely trivial for the majority of the show is ruined by one or two scenes about a half hour in which frankly look shithouse, and this is through a progressive scan and an older standard Sony player. If this didn’t occur, I would have given the transfer top marks, but as it stands two particular instances make you wonder whether your player has briefly gone balls up.
Audio
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I kind of get sick of looking at DVDs from a comparative angle when they come supplied with both a Dolby Digital and DTS mix. More often than not I’ve found very little difference, so let’s just say that if you personally favour one over the other then with either track you’re going to like what you hear.
It’s a nice mix, with good clarity from the centre, a bit of nice dispersion off to the sides and the odd embellishment to the rears. The surrounds are used more heavily in the action scenes with the score rather than effects work, but it still gives the right impression of watching something vaguely exciting, such as exhibited in the truck/hearse chase.
On a final note regarding the audio, I can’t stand Robbie Williams, as I think he has rapidly disappeared up his own clacker and produces most of his work from inside there, but the theme song which he performs almost redeems him, being very catchy and featuring a few cack lines. It sure as heck beats that lame Madonna Bond theme, one of the more ridiculous themes in years/decades/ever.
Extras
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I don’t mind a bit of a send-up at times, but the menu style is a lazy ripoff of Bond DVDs, with the J.E. embellishments a trivial touch, nice as it is to look at.
Suave, sophisticated, debonair, ugly as sin.
The basic selection of extras is made up of The Making of Johnny English, which is designed for running on telly in a neat 30 minutes timeslot. This gives it a little more legs than similar so-so quick promo bites, although the extra padding doesn’t add up to much, but good on them for trying. The deleted scenes are stuck behind a bloody annoying interactive game, so you have to run through a stupid observation test to get to them. Simple as it may be, by the time I got to the scenes I was too pissed off to be bothered with them. This smacks of trying to make the skimpy load of bonus material look like more than what it is. If I want to watch a deleted scene, I want to watch it NOW, not five minutes from now, and not after watching some other stupid pointless junk.
Character stats is simply biographical info on the characters (not the actors) and for two selected items they use, such as a pen or a gun. Padding, padding, padding.
Stick the disc in a PC outfitted with a DVD-ROM drive and you can extend your happyhappyjoyjoy even further with more great stuff like dodgy quality wallpapers, a couple of screensavers and some other games. Yippee!
Overall
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It isn’t too hard to see how this went right over the heads of Stateside audiences, finding far more receptive attention from the Brits and our own convict colony. Still, no matter how loyal you are to Rowan you have to admit that far more of the humour fails than succeeds.
The DVD quality isn’t so bad, with a mostly very good looking picture let down by some aliasing issues, a DTS audio track to prop up the already effective Dolby Digital mix but a rather insubstantial selection of extras.
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