Johnny English Strikes Again

Rowan Atkinson's third time as the clumsy agent and, to be honest, it's not great. Johnny English Strikes Again has a couple of very good scenes, but on the whole it's a rather trite piece of entertainment that runs out of breath towards the end. When Atkinson is in Mr. Bean mode, though, it's great. (26/10/2018)

I'm not a huge fan of the franchise, but I went to the cinema out of curiosity, as spies are trendy now, but Johnny English isn't going to make a dent in the world. Action-wise, there's nothing to stand on, the villain is awful (one of the worst I've seen this year) and the humor is alternately funny and lame. Rowan Atkinson in Bean mode is still fine and Olga Kurylenko is sexier than ever here, but it's nowhere near a cinematic spectacle. 55% (28/10/2018)

There are far fewer scenes that make you laugh compared to the previous two films, leaving you a terrible script with a horribly stale plot and a denouement that is impossible to take seriously. I wouldn't have minded if it had at least worked as a comedy. It's just that good old Mr. Bean is gone and the humor here is anything but natural. Never again. Please, never again. Boring, 2 stars. (13/12/2018)

“Simple is my middle name." This time, it really holds true because, along with Johnny English, the lame level of the first installment has returned. Unfortunately, you forget about that sympathetic underdog from the previous picture, because here we once again get the coy and often downright evil individual who you wouldn't want to be close to. If that wasn’t bad enough, even the awkward and predictably simple humor returned that is able to somewhat save Rowan Atkinson, but no one else can deal with the misery, especially the clueless Emma Thompson. It's a shame, because I had hoped for a better comedy, not a mess with a few bright moments (the school, the dance...) and good Goodall music.____P.S. The Czech subtitles were ridiculous again. Why is “100 percent plastic. And 100% deadly" translated as “100% recyclable. Unlike you," will remain a mystery to me forever. (25/10/2018)

In the weakest instalment of the franchise, Johnny English is a secret agent of the analogue old school who is suddenly confronted with modern digital technologies such as smartphones and virtual reality. Nevertheless, his bitter conflicts with modern conveniences are only sporadically present in the film, so most of the humor, which draws significantly from the previous two instalments, is again conveyed by means of classic “Bean comedy”, in addition to parodic plays on the spy movie genre. However, the hackneyed scenes with physical gags that are long past their sell-by date (the protagonist’s nose gets caught in a cocktail umbrella; he gets scared by the fire while flambéing shrimps and spills them on the floor...) come across as very stale and predictable. The totally routine and listless directing definitely doesn’t help with its insufficient feel for comic timing. Besides that, the filmmakers appear to be conservative technophobes who present new technologies as instruments of evil that are not understood at all by most of the film’s characters, including the protagonist, whose inability to adapt to anything modern is extolled as a virtue – in the climax, he is even dressed in medieval armor in order to further emphasize that he is a hero of the good old days. He is a hero who is generally considered to be an incompetent fool that always ruins everything and always achieves success only by accident thanks to the random aligning of circumstances, yet he is praised by the prime minister in the final scenes as a representative of proper British values and qualities. Though Rowan Atkinson is usually able to put things right with his facial expressions, this time making funny faces was unfortunately not enough to salvage such a lazy and half-baked comedy with no imagination and with weak, unimaginative and trite humor. (26/04/2022)

Johnny English for the third time, for better or worse! The third film about the supremely inept agent is qualitatively comparable to its predecessors in terms of action, humour and cast. There are places where they were running on fumes and relying on the already seen, but the dance of the speeding English, the lines of the Prime Minister played by Emma Thompson or, the mini-scene with the old spies Michael Gambon, Charles Dance and Edward Fox were great. I also liked the return of the old friend Bough. Last but not least, I praise the way they repeatedly made fun of the contrast between high technology (the modern generation) and traditional practices (the old guard). (02/12/2018)