Get ready for some laughs when you see this movie. And it is nice to see a movie, a new major release, which doesn’t contain a lot of strong language. It has a few innuendos, but it is not gratuitous, and the physical humor of Rowan Atkinson is worth seeing. I get the impression the filmmakers made the movie with the hope that kids over twelve could watch it with Mom and Dad and it is good to see the PG rather than PG-13 rating.
Families are still encouraged to carefully read the content listing below as it may not be for everyone. It features a bit of martial arts as well as jokes and bits of physical humor and also contains the kind of humor in which Rowan’s character, Johnny English, who doesn’t like cats, taps a cat on the side when it is up on the window sill, and it falls a couple stories below. Amazingly, the cat survives. In other scenes, a woman villain impersonates various characters and Johnny goes after her but in a few instances she escapes and he winds up smacking the woman she impersonated (in one case a friend’s elderly mother and in another the Queen of England). He uses a metal tray and whacks them good and then winds up with egg on his face. In another scene he hops around in a body bag, trying desperately to get out.
The film contains a couple of slang uses for testicles and in one scene a woman Johnny likes wants him to hide in her apartment bedroom because he is in danger and he misunderstands her motive about hiding in the “bedroom”. But that is about as strong as the content gets. The film is fairly wholesome and certainly contains some laugh-out-loud moments. As far as the plot, Johnny is set up as the bad guy and it is up to him to discover who betrayed him, to capture the villain, and to set things straight. He also wants to save an important person from being assassinated, as he was caught off guard in Mozambique by a woman in a bikini and he does not want to make the same mistake twice. The movie contains a few nice themes including doing something right the second time around and forgiving one’s self. We are glad to recommend it and to award the film our Dove “Family-Approved” Seal.