[wpdevart_youtube]Qv6p6pTz5I[/wpdevart_youtube]JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN **
Dir: David Kerr (PG, 95 mins)
After Johnny English and its sequel Johnny English Reborn, yet another limp Bond parody from Rowan Atkinson would hardly have seemed necessary or wanted, yet here it is. Called out of secret service retirement and escaping a dead-end teaching job at a public school, Atkinson has to find the criminal mastermind responsible for a cyber attack that has revealed all of Britain’s undercover agents. This leads to a variety of set pieces: some vaguely xenophobic (attacking French cyclists), some overlong (a prolonged sketch about losing yourself in a VR headset is particularly painful), some occasionally funny (people falling over). A strong supporting cast – Emma Thompson as Atkinson’s boss, Ben Miller as his hapless sidekick, and former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko as a femme fatale – do what they can with the thin material but to little avail. Atkinson is a superb physical comic, but the setups are overblown and the jokes are tired and often indulgent, making this installment for kids only. Opens Oct 5