JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN
Director: David Kerr
Cert: PG. 88 minutes
This is a comedy about misplaced confidence; mostly Johnny English’s often misplaced confidence in himself, and people’s misplaced confidence in technology to be the saviour of everything.
When a mysterious hacker compromises the identities of all MI7 Agents, Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is called out of retirement again, along with his trusty sidekick Bough (Ben Miller) from the first film.
Our hero tries to outwit this high-tech villain by old-fashioned methods, but whatever level of technology he uses, he’s often (though not always) capable of outwitting himself. The action takes place in the South of France, with a ludicrous finale at a castle in Scotland. In the context of the film’s overall silliness, the unbelievability arguably becomes funny.
In the midst of this, Johnny English dons a clunky suit of armour, and slowly yet doggedly attempts to thwart the villain’s high-tech plans, in a great illustration of the film’s tension between old and new. He may be flawed and a bit stuck in his ways, but Johnny English nevertheless shows glimmers of the steadfast nobility represented by the knights of old.
God is bigger
The film serves as a silly, fun reminder not to take ourselves (or the problems of the world) too seriously. Of course, our problems do matter, but God is bigger, we can trust them into his hands, and we don’t have to worry. There’s occasional bad language and brief mild comic nudity.
