John­ny Eng­lish Strikes Again

Sev­en years may seem like an age between sequels, but we def­i­nite­ly could have wait­ed much, much longer before hav­ing to sit through anoth­er John­ny Eng­lish film. Now with a third instal­ment in the series, Rowan Atkin­son returns as the British government’s clown­ish last resort ready for anoth­er moron­ic attempt at espionage.

In John­ny Eng­lish Strikes Again, cyber attacks on the UK have revealed the per­son­al data of every secret agent work­ing for MI7, leav­ing only a hand­ful of for­mer names capa­ble of find­ing the cul­prit. Hav­ing acci­den­tal­ly bumped off his com­pe­ti­tion and, reunit­ed with side­kick Bough (Ben Miller), the inept Eng­lish takes the job and heads to the south of France to begin the inves­ti­ga­tion. Jake Lacy as tech-wiz bad­die Jason Vol­ta and Olga Kurylenko as Ophe­lia Bul­leto­va, a Russ­ian spy with a vague stake in the action, round out the sup­port­ing cast in thank­less roles.

The usu­al chaos ensues as incom­pe­ten­cy reigns supreme. As expect­ed, Eng­lish falls over a lot and acci­den­tal­ly sets fire to things, mak­ing a mock­ery of British Intel­li­gence. Even if Atkinson’s brand of phys­i­cal com­e­dy hasn’t entire­ly lost its appeal, the vast major­i­ty of the film is tedious­ly humour­less. The hack­ers tar­get­ing the UK have a bit more imag­i­na­tion at least, and per­haps the fun­ni­est quips in the film con­cern their efforts to set all the traf­fic lights in the cap­i­tal to red or redi­rect all Lon­don-bound planes to Luton air­port. Frankly, at this point, it’s no less than we deserve.

When the laughs are direct­ed at sur­round­ing char­ac­ters, the far nas­ti­er streaks to English’s per­sona emerge. Bough reveals to him that he’s recent­ly mar­ried a woman in the navy and the bum­bling, misog­y­nist spy asks whether she’s there as a cook or a ​“trav­el­ling sec­re­tary”. Then there’s the ​‘needs Pho­to­Shop’ alert that flash­es up on Volta’s phone after he takes a self­ie with Prime Min­is­ter Emma Thomp­son. And, if tear gassing a group of French cyclists from an Aston Mar­tin wasn’t Brexit‑y enough, Atkin­son see­ing out the film in a full suit of armour does the trick.

Tech­nol­o­gy is the clear ene­my here and, despite the idio­cy on dis­play, it is English’s lud­dite sen­si­bil­i­ties that come to help him the most. Volta’s brand of vil­lainy revolves around his youth and intel­li­gence, and our blun­der­ing, parochial hero’s inabil­i­ty and unwill­ing­ness to use a smart­phone is his ulti­mate fight­ing tool. The point may be to empha­sise the tit­u­lar char­ac­ter as a flim­sy, slap­stick fig­ure of ridicule, but these films con­tin­ue to cham­pi­on a sti­fling­ly igno­rant and unfun­ny individual.