Right now, I'm almost too ashamed to admit it but I was always very
interested in seeing another "Johnn English" movie. I was even quite
happy to learn that a (late) sequel was in the works, at the time. It's
not like I was an huge fan of the first "Johnn English" movie, on the
contrary quite really but I saw a lot of potential in it, with its
concept and main character and was always hopeful that a sequel would
do a far better job with all of it. However after this movie, I could
hope for it that this was the last one, out of a short lived and failed
series.
I even have to say that this movie was way worse than its predecessor.
The movie tried to be funny but to me, it just wasn't. You could call
most of the humor in this movie slapstick like but it's mostly some
very immature and far too simplistic stuff. It might had made me laugh
a couple of times but really, that doesn't mean that this is a good or
fun comedy to watch as well.
But I don't even think I can say that the humor, or the lack of it, is
the biggest problem of this movie. I had far more problems with its
story. It just never really made any sense to me and too often I
absolutely had no idea what was going on. I had no idea why Johnny
English was being set on this particular case and I also had no idea
what the case was all about in the first place. Or perhaps I should
rather say that I simply couldn't have cared any less about it and
perhaps that also was part of the reason why I too often had absolutely
no idea what was going on with any its story.
It besides is all being some very formulaic and predictable stuff. If
you have seen any other spy comedy before, you know exactly what is
going to happen in this movie and with its story. The story might be
confusing but its developments and 'twists' really aren't anything
clever or surprising.
And while the first movie at least still had some fun James bond spoof
elements in it, this movie mostly tries to be its own thing. It still
has some hints of a James Bond spoof in it but this really didn't
seemed to be the film-makers its main aim and goal. And this is a
shame, since the movie itself has far too little original and clever
ideas of its own in it.
Most people, myself included, are very well aware of the great stuff
Rowan Atkinson is capable off but somehow it never really seems to work
out in movies. But I really don't think you could blame Atkinson for
any of this. He simply had never been given the right movie material to
work with. Some more capable comedy writers could had really launched
Atkinson's movie career to greater heights, years ago already but it
all seems too little, too late by now. Atkinson is getting close to his
60's and it is unlikely that his movie career is ever going to take
off.
And all of the other actors are pretty much wasted in this movie as
well. I had no idea what Gillian Anderson was doing in here and they
also did absolutely nothing with Rosamund Pike in this. The movie is
being filled with some terribly underwritten and poorly handled
characters.
No, not just a movie that was disappointing but this simply was a movie
that was bad!
4/10
Watch trailer
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