Johnny English Strikes Again (Allen)

Rowan Atkinson returns as the bumbling Bond parody and things are pretty much as you were. Atkinson's hair is slightly less grey than in Johnny English 2 but other than that it's all exactly the same. Sticking with the slightly less cartoonish approach of the second film, the slapstick spy is brought out of retirement once again when MI7 suffers a security breach and all their agents are exposed.

The concept here has potential; the threat is from a cyber attacker so pull up an old school analogue agent who will do things the old fashioned way with none of your new-fangled mobile phones to hold him back. But even that is done in the usual confused nature that seems to come with Johnny English. Is this actually an advantage or is he just getting things wrong? Is he a good spy out of his era or is he just a useless twat? Three films in and they still haven't made their mind up.

Atkinson is still capable of pulling off his usual low-impact physical comedy and it is nice to see him back on the screen. Ben Miller also makes a return as Bough, his faithful and still under-appreciated sidekick. You'll be pleased to hear that the dynamic between them has not changed with the benefit of fifteen years experience. Or bored. Yeah, probably bored.

Olga Kurylenko really does nothing wrong as the femme fatale that English has to team up with against their common enemy but it's also a very forgettable character and a forgettable performance. At least they were sensible enough to not expect us to take her seriously as a love interest, and in fact English's affection for her is exploited as a weakness. But if you want to talk about forgettable characters let's look to the actual bad guy who is a tech guy who is played by... some guy. Again, I don't really want to blame the actor, whoever he is, it's just a weak character.

The only shining light in the cast, is (to no one's surprise) Emma Thompson, who plays a frustrated and desperate Prime Minister. She's great, but it still never works when you have a likeable actor playing a politician.

“But sir, why don’t I just call Barclaycard and ask them about their great money-back mortgage offers?”

The fractured nature of the plot means the film is made up of a series of set pieces that aim to provide a bit of physical humour with very little in the way of narrative justification. This piecemeal approach makes the whole thing feel like a series of adverts strung together with a common central character. Everything proceeds with little in the way of believability or charm and the ending is a complete shambles. But, if you like the previous Johnny English films then this will basically tickle the same parts.

It's all kind of pointless but it does what you expect; 5/10