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Johnny English: DVD Review January 12, 2004 |
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*This is a condensed version of a review posted 7/21/03*
Do you think when Ian Fleming created James Bond, and Sean Connery immortalized him in “Dr. No”, that they knew the character would be ripe for spoofing for decades to come? There have been numerous, good-hearted knockoffs, from James Coburn as Derek Flint to Mike Myers as Austin Powers. These were successful, mildly entertaining characters that fastly wore out their welcome in similar themed sequels to a once original idea. The latest Bond wannabe, Johnny English, as played by that British master of pantomime and bumbling idiocy, Rowan Atkinson is, like Flint and Powers before him, a character that can’t hold an Astin Martin stick shift to the great 007. The trouble with these parodies, “Johnny English” in particular, which has recently been released on DVD, is that James Bond was always a comedian in disguise. He consistently had a good barb to tell about a fallen foe (when asked about Goldfinger’s electrocuted, bowler hat wearing henchman, “he blew a fuse”) or a nice double entendre for Miss Moneypenny at the head office. So if there was already humor, good, charming humor to be had in the original, than what is the point in satirizing that which was already funny? A joke about a joke is hardly a joke at all. There is potential for it to work if the material is good enough, “Our Man Flint” and the original Austin Powers hold up well, and it helps when the character doing the aping is both funny and believable. If the script is weak, and the character isn’t up to snuff, than it will fall dreadfully flat and can reek with an air of sham copycatism. Parody master Henry Fielding once said, “A truly elegant taste is generally accomplished with excellency of heart.” Elegance, taste and heart are three of the many things lacking about Atkinson’s man of action. The plot to the film revolves around our hero, a second grade British spy who has been called up to grade one after a tragic mishap (caused by himself) kills the good agents, as he tries to prevent a crazed Frenchman from stealing the throne of England. Exactly how one goes about convincing a nation he rightfully belongs as King is a moot point, the logic of the plot is simply to get English into situations where he can A) embarrass both himself and his increasingly annoyed superiors, and B) stumble upon a solution that more often than not logically doesn’t work. “The word mistake is not one that appears in my dictionary,” boasts Mr. English in the film’s most pedestrian and painfully obvious joke. “Johnny English” starts out with a dream sequence, as our hapless hero is attending a swanky aristocratic party in a huge country estate. He is goofy, yet dapper in a black tux with two days stubble and a martini glass (shaken, not stirred would be too much). He is sweeping a pretty woman off of her high heels when the real J.E. stands up, sleeping at his desk, dreaming in BondVision. It sets the tone, English isn’t that other guy, the guy with the appropriately shaken martini, or even perhaps a guy like Arnold Schwarzenegger in “True Lies” (a dead-on and funny spy spoof), he’s just a dope in a bad suit. Much like Frank Drebin in the “Naked Gun” series, English has a way of missing the point, of not understanding what is right under his big nose. All of his foibles would be funny if handled right, with an ironic smirk or gesture best suited to Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. But Atkinson is too much the goof to make this a pure slapstick or satire. As his famed Mr. Bean character he was hilariously out of it, a man-child who spoke in grunts and expressed with his eyes and limbs, one funny instance resulting with a giant turkey on his head. Like Mr. Bean, the Johnny English character originated on British television, in advertisements, and much like the painfully unfunny big screen adaptation of Bean, it should have stayed on British television. Recently, it seems, what is good in England on the small screen is wretched in replication, be it “Johnny English”, or NBC’s ill-fated “Coupling”. One can only hope that the Americanized version of the BBC’s satirical masterpiece, “The Office” fares better next fall. As unmemorable as the English character is he’s surrounded by sidekicks and villains that are just as square and nutty. English is infatuated by a pretty young agent (the Bond girl role) named Lorna Campbell (Natalie Imbruglia) who is charmed by his failures. It was easy to see Bond as the ladies man, but to have a steely-eyed goddess like Campbell fall for the terminally dopey English is one cliché too many. Meanwhile, John Malkovich is another sore spot as the crazy villain Pascal Sauvage, who has a plan to turn the whole of Britain into a large penal colony. A respectable actor, and director (his “The Dancer Upstairs” was an artistic surprise last year) Malkovich has played lunatics before, but his character here is a shockingly bad stereotype. With an unconvincing French accent and an embarrassing gray wig, Malko is miscast and struggles to escape the shell of a character that is as loony as a Canadian dollar coin. When a good actor like Malkovich (an Oscar nominee at that) appears in an innocuous film like this, it’s either simply for a big payday, or for a lack of self-respect. 2-1 odds on it being about the money. And frankly, a county that has given us the likes of Francois Truffaut, Jacques Tati, Catherine Deneuve and Jean Renoir deserves better representation from the medium they enhanced so well. “Johnny English” is a film awash in cheap jokes and poor characters, and it ultimately fails because the heroic strivings of the lead character just aren’t that funny. He wants to be Bond and he even has a theme song, but even in a spoof, a catchy song isn’t enough to convince us that the real deal (see “Goldfinger” to refresh your memory) needs a goofy doppelganger. “Johnny English” has been released on DVD by Universal in both Full and Wide-Screen formats.
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