After three Naked Gun movies and three Austin Powers movies, do we really need another spy spoof movie? Well, apparently someone thought we did, and they put up the money for Johnny English. On paper, it's a good idea: Rowan Atkinson is a great comedic actor and John Malkovich plays a terrific villain. Toss in the pair of screenwriters who penned the last two James Bond films, and you've got all the ingredients for a hilarious box office hit, right? On the other hand, is it really possible to make a movie based on a British television ad?

Johnny English is a desk-bound employee of the British secret service. When all of England's other secret agents are killed, Johnny English receives his first mission: to protect the British crown jewels. This mission is soon revised to: find the British crown jewels after English predictably bumbles their safe-keeping. Standing in his way is the evil Pascal Sauvage, a French prison baron with the worst of intentions. Luckily, English can rely on the help of his straight man/ sidekick Bough and a beautiful stranger named Lorna Campbell.

The best thing that can be said about Johnny English is that it's short. The movie moves at a quick pace and is over before you know it. That said, too much time is spent setting up the gags. You can see every blunder coming a good five minutes before it happens and when it finally comes around, it's not very funny. In fact, the best laughs don't come from the script at all, but from the talented, stretchy-faced Atkinson.

Atkinson's English is part Mr. Bean, part Inspector Clouseau, but the sum of these two parts is far less funny than one would expect. The high points (English lip-synching to ABBA in the bathroom mirror) are far outnumbered by low points (English emerging from a toilet covered in fecal matter).

Malkovich, as the French villain Sauvage, should have been the saving grace of this film. Unfortunately, the character-as-written is bland and uninspiring. There is little for Malkovich to do except don a creepy stare and speak in a French accent which can only be described as "extreme."

In the style of Johnny English himself, the filmmakers blundered themselves into un-funny territory and failed at their mission to create a successful spoof. Atkinson is funny and charming as always, but given the below-par script of Johnny English, one wonders if Atkinson's mission was only it to get away with some Queen Elizabeths.

-Megan A. Denny