Starring Rowan Atkinson, Ben Miller, Olga Kurylenko, Adam James, Jake Lacy and Emma Thompson

Directed by David Kerr

Universal, out now

When the identities of every MI7 agent is revealed, there’s only one person the country can rely on – and he’s well out of the spy game.

Yes, Johnny English Strikes Again can be regarded as a 90 minute diversion, with Rowan Atkinson going through a lot of his usual shtick, complete with funny faces and dances, and a propensity for pompous behaviour that is totally inappropriate. That slapstick element was enough to keep the very young parts of the audience in hysterics for much of the time. And the sight of Atkinson’s English believing he’s in a virtual reality situation and actually being in a sandwich bar so the weapons he finds to defend himself with are not quite what he thinks they are is great fun. Quantum of Solace’s Kurylenko has great fun as the femme fatale – and seems to be enjoying herself considerably more than on the oh-so-serious 007 movie!

But dig a little deeper, and there’s actually a lot more to this third Johnny English than meets the eye. Scriptwriter William Davies clearly knows his spy fiction and there are many elements to the storyline that homage / extract the proverbial from past classics. The start with all the names being revealed borrows from Skyfall (which of course borrowed from Mission: Impossible); Johnny English is found as a schoolmaster, showing the kids in his care the tricks of the trade – think Jim Prideaux from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; when English and Bough are checking out the villain’s ocean going transport, they don’t get the help Pierce Brosnan’s 007 did in GoldenEye, with a phone in their car – they have to cram Euros into a French pay phone. The tech genius offering all to the world – Die Another Day’s Gustav Graves? An attempt to assassinate the British secret agent on the dance floor – Thunderball / Never Say Never Again? The list goes on (MI7 of course itself being the organisation for which Connery’s Bond works in the first movie, Dr No).

English is as doggedly narrow-minded as he’s ever been – there’s no problem with teargassing a peloton of cyclists, given they’re French – and it’s quite clear that he saves the day despite himself (and thanks to Miller’s Bough being considerably more useful than his boss – I was just thinking he was like Penfold to Danger Mouse, when Miller came out with a “Crikey”!)

No, it’s not a movie that is going to give you an insight into the meaning of life, and how the overreliance of technology could cause the end of civilisation if control got into the wrong hands. It’s a film about an idiot who saves the day by throwing an iPad at one point – but it does a little more than just pass the time.

Verdict: An enjoyable diversion. 7/10

Paul Simpson