At gunpoint I might confess to smiling when English pummeled the Queen of England with a tea tray, but the babysitters for the target audience will know that his best bits are burgled from Austin Powers.
What the film really needed was an injection of comedy that plays to Atkinson's strengths. He's a funny guy, but this material just isn't worthy of him.
"English Reborn" isn't terrible and is certainly seriously harmless...But it does remind one of the glorious past and the potential Atkinson never realized in his movies, even the hit ones.
The humor isn't as dual-edged as, say, a Pixar comedy. But director Oliver Parker knows his genre well enough to lampoon the mainstays of the spy-flick genre, from impossibly high-tech weapons to foot chases worthy of Olympic medals.
This is not the highest level of comedy, or even the highest level of effort from everyone involved, but at least they get out of the way and let the man work.
It would seem to appeal mostly to hard-core fans of the "Mr. Bean'' star and children who laugh at the sight of men being repeatedly kicked in the groin.
Atkinson revives the comic secret agent that he first introduced in a series of TV ads in the UK, but this thin script gives him nothing remotely like a rebirth.
Gallery of "Johnny English Reborn"
HD
Annabelle: Creation
2017
IMDb: 7
109 min
Country: United States
Genre: Thriller, Horror, Mystery
Twelve years after the tragic death of their little girl, a dollmaker and his wife welcome a
nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into ...
