Johnny English
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DVD Review
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Review
Plot
When all but one of Britain’s MI7 agents are assassinated at a funeral it’s up to the lowest ranking but only remaining agent Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) and his assistant Bough (Ben Miller) to take up the reigns. When the crown Jewels are stolen from right before his eyes, Johnny immediately suspects the wealthy French prison owner Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich) to be behind the theft.
Johnny however needs to prove this and with the assistance of Bough and mysterious jewellery dealer Lorna Campbell (Natalie Imbruglia) he uncovers a far more sinister plot than simply the theft of the crown jewels.
Review
Depending on your age you may or may not remember a series of popular adverts for Barclaycard that were on TV a good few years ago. They featured Rowan Atkinson as a British agent Richard Latham accompanied by his sidekick bough in various assignments. Latham was a comedy mix of James Bond and Jacques Clouseau, attempting to be suave and sophisticated but actually clumsy and bumbling.
Johnny English is basically this character renamed a touch of Mr Bean added in and a plot added and stretched out to 90 minutes. This is a pretty funny film, a little patchy in places and certainly not as funny as Austin Powers, but amusing enough to keep my interest. It’s really helped along by having a good strong cast, Ben Miller is a good straight man as English’ assistant Bough and Natalie Imbruglia although underused certainly looks and acts the part as the female interest. Rowan Atkinson as the lead character doesn’t disappoint and puts in a strong performance. My favourite character though has to be John Malkovich as Pascal Sauvage. He’s a completely over the top evil Frenchmen including a ridiculously stereotyped camped up French accent.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews/comments criticize the Sauvage character for being too over the top but I personally think these people have missed the point. Much of the comedy here plays on the British / French relationship in a very slapstick way. English and Sauvage are extremes of both of these and should only be taken as such. As someone who is British but not English I noticed that the film in several places refers to the whole of UK as England and it would be just as easy to take offence to this as anything else, however this again would be taking the film too seriously (and I’m sure this was done for the benefit of American audiences).
As far as faults go, the film is a little uneven in pacing and the whole plot concept is rather ridiculous, occasionally I found some of the comedy to be a little hit and miss as well with some set scenes seeming to be blatant rip offs of other films. Overall though I enjoyed it, and would probably watch it again.
Video / Audio
A good strong 1.85:1 Anamorphic image here, colours are bright and bold and there’s strong black levels. Very occasionally there is a little grain but overall there isn’t much to fault with the image on the disk.
On the audio side we are treated to both a Dolby Digital 5.1 and a DTS soundtrack. As DTS is always my natural favourite this was the one I opted for to watch the film. This is a nice soundtrack with the action sequences making effective use of all channels. The dialogue is nice and clear throughout and in places your subwoofer will get a nice workout.
Extras
The first and main extra on here is a Making-Of feature, it seems as if this was originally made for TV as right in the middle it breaks and a part two message comes up. At 25 minutes long it’s not the best making of feature I’ve ever seen, it’s quite lacking in substance but what’s there isn’t too bad.
Character Stats is a fairly pointless extra feature, it contains character profiles for Johnny English, Pascal Sauvage, Lorna Campbell and Bough. They list strengths and weaknesses etc for each character. This is obviously meant to be funny but is ultimately pointless.
Observation Test is basically a selection of deleted scenes hidden behind an observation quiz. Basically you are shown a short scene from the film and then asked a multiple-choice question on the scene. It’s not really much of an observation test as the questions are very easy. Once you beat the quiz you get the deleted scenes. The scenes themselves contain a character that was completely removed from the film. The character was actually played by Rowan Atkinson and having watched them I think it was wise to remove him.
The film itself is broken into n chapters and subtitles are available in English. Given that this is a single disk release and it contains both DTS and DD 5.1 soundtracks it’s probably not surprising that the extras are thin on the ground. The ones that are there could have been a lot better quality though.
Overall
It’s hard to know whether or not to recommend this DVD. While I enjoyed the film I’m sure it’s not going to be to everyone’s taste. If you like Rowan Atkinsons’ work and enjoy the likes of Austin Powers then I’d say give it a try. The extras are a little thin on the ground but the film itself is well presented with great image quality and both DTS and Dolby Digital soundtracks.
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