As fruitful and plentiful as the spy genre has been throughout the generations of cinema, spoof spy movies are surprisingly as massive a genre of film. Spy films, specifically the James Bond franchise, has been parodied for practically as long as the genre has existed. Since the format of the type of film is often home to a lot of tinkering and can be molded into several different themes, tones and styles, the possibilities for them are endless. Directions that have been taken included ones that have taken on their own style and created their own franchises like Charlie’s Angels and Austin Powers, ones that have specifically focused on spoofing the entire Spy genre like The Naked Gun, or the 1967 Casino Royale, and even ones that have altered the formula enough with their own elements to make it feel nothing like a spoof, like cartoons like Kim Possible and Archer. However, with the amount of films being created under this thought of mocking the spy genre, its eventually going to get old and stale if nothing different is added onto it. Johnny English is the best example of when it runs out of ideas. Kind-hearted yet inept MI7 agent, Johnny English (played by Rowan Atkinson) gets his chance at being a secret agent when he unwittingly kills all the other agents in a freak accident. His first mission involves the Queen’s royal Crown Jewels which have been stolen by Pascal Sauvage (played by John Malkovich), a Frenchman planning on using Britain as a make-shift prison for all the worst people in the world. With him unfortunately being the only option, English along with female spy, Lorna Campbell (played by Natalie Imbruglia) and his partner in the field, Bough (played by Ben Miller) have to save the world from the Greedy Frenchman and hope that English doesn’t mess it up for them in the process. Being a concept already incredibly dated by the time this movie came out in 2003, Johnny English barely counts as a Spy satire film; with nothing smart or unique added onto the rehashed premised, only being packed with every standard typical cliché from any spy movie, regular or spoof.

Making a spoof of a spy film comes with its own form of clichés that overrule the clichés that come with the original genre; the main character is usually a complete dimwit as opposed to the usual smooth calm and collected spy, his actions can either be overly stupid yet still effective or a complete failure with mishaps being his savior, they often feature female sidekicks, over-the-top villains, incredibly stupid henchman, and humor is always the front and center of the film. While these tropes are pretty noticeable, most good parodies find the extra step above the normal formula to make its movie its own thing. Johnny English is the barest form of this sub-genre to the point where it feels like cliche of a regular spy movie, it doesn’t even feel smart enough to be mocking itself. The story is about as predictable and kindergarten as any spy movie could have and its not elevated by any good sense of humor or any unique flairs to the set-up. A spoof does not need to include the harsh levels of intricate story-telling that the Bond films have, but it would be effective to have a story where any audience member wouldn’t see done on a typical animated movie. The movie feels like its specifically targeting James Bond with its spoof; with the name of the main character, the code names given to each character, the plan from the villain, and other elements like that, which makes it even more frustrating that they aren’t doing it justice by being creative or even more destructive with its humor. Its the most inoffensive spoof movie within this genre, and that is precisely the problem.

The character of Johnny English is an obvious mixture between the standard portrayal of 007 and Rowan Atkinson’s famous comic character, Mr Bean. This already starts the movie off on a struggling note as the concept isn’t even that smart or unique, the two styles of humor are vastly different and the Bean routine seems to kill any sense of flair that could be introduce with Rowan Atkinson as a spy. Rowan Atkinson has played a similar character in various Barclaycard ads in the UK so the role is pretty familiar with him, but seeing Atkinson being smooth and very Bond-like in those rare occasions, is infinity more interesting than the bumbling character that he’s constantly playing. Rowan Atkinson is acting fairly well throughout the movie, but with a role that offers no new material, its hard to appreciate what otherwise could have been a legitimately good James Bond rip-off. The rest of the characters are equally as generic and not trying to be anything above the standard cliché; Natalie Imbruglia isn’t that good an actress as the side girl, John Malkovich as the villain is incredibly condensing, very boring to watch, pretty bad acting wise, and is so obviously the bad guy they don’t even try to hide it for that long (his name is literally dripping villain). Ben Miller is acting fine but his character is still just the main character’s fall man. The cast of a spy film are usually meant for moral support or to add a human element to a world run by rules and crazy spy stuff, but when your lead feels like he’s halting progress in your story and the side characters are as bland as bread, its very hard to like anybody in this movie

The writing team behind this movie are the one’s responsible for the later Bond movies between Die Another Day to the current No Time to Die. These two writers, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, are clearly good choices to include on a spoof of a bond film as they would be perfect contenders for picking up on clichés and going against them. However, the entirety of the humor solely relies on one joke; English thinks one thing and it turns out that its not. This type of joke gets overused so much throughout the movie that even audience members will be able to guess the joke before it comes into play, it’s not trying to be subtle in the least. Once and a while there’s a funny mean-spirited joke and even the opening credits has a nice bit where it continues on until he literally finds the correct room, but outside of that, it’s always the same joke and it gets old really quickly. The technicals for the movie are pretty dated overall; the camerawork is messy and unfocused in a lot of moments, there’s opportunities for good action scenes like a car chase involving a crane-lift but they end up going nowhere that interesting, the music (outside of the opener which is paying homage to bond) isn’t anything special, and overall its very bland aesthetic wise which is not good for a spy movie which relies on its sense of style and ambiance to leave a visual impact.

Johnny English could be called a let-down for a fun set-up but with how many spy spoof films there have been over the years, its impressive that up to this point for the new formula on top of the old formula to get old. Mocking and paying homage to these classic espionage films are ones that hold a place in people’s hearts and has changed itself into such its own thing that it can even not be seen as a satire anymore, but rather a new breed of spy films. This movie is trying nothing unique with what it has and is essentially just a non-mute Mr Bean being a spy, and that is exactly as funny as it sounds. Overall, the film is not unwatchable but its just largely generic and not worthy of a view against other satires that do so much more. He may have no clue, but its not a big secret that, despite being turned into a franchise and being commercial successful, its no secret that this spy is an obvious failure.