For an action-comedy film, Johnny English Strikes Again contains remarkably little action. Some would argue it also contains little comedy. As much as I love this franchise (and other genre spoofs like Spy and Austin Powers), it's hard to vouch for this threequel when the plot and many of its jokes are exact copies of those seen in the movie's two predecessors. Thankfully, some excellent performances and a handful of laugh-out-loud moments rescue this from being a complete English cock-up.

　　Strikes Again sees Johnny (Rowan Atkinson) once again brought out of retirement to aid Her Majesty's Secret Service in its fight against a cyberterrorist threat wreaking havoc with the United Kingdom's infrastructure. He's joined by old friend Bough (Ben Miller) as they investigate the source of the attacks, and over the film's 88-minute running time the pair bumble their way through London, southern France, and northern Scotland with all the glamor and style you'd expect from a James Bond wannabe. In response to the cyber-threat, English eschews technology for fear of being tracked, so MI7's smartphones and hybrid cars are out, and trusty old handguns and Aston Martins are in. But the film mostly foregoes action and fight scenes in favor of contrived slapstick, to mixed success.

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　　Along the way, Bough and English must deal with a hapless Prime Minister (Emma Thompson), femme fatale Ophelia (Olga Kurylenko), and Silicon Valley billionaire Jason Volta (Jake Lacy). While Thompson demonstrates her acting pedigree with a nuanced performance far better than her lines should allow and Kurylenko does her best with a thin character, Volta is totally listless as a villain. He intends to control the data of the world's 12 major nations, but quite why he wants this information is never revealed, and in any case a plot surrounding a G12 summit surrendering control of the public's browsing history doesn't make the most riveting framework for a film produced, at least in part, for children. It's The Phantom Menace's separatist trade agreements all over again.

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　　Lacy does little to help Volta's abstract, anaemic threat. His performance is neither intimidating enough for us to take him seriously as a villain, nor over-the-top and camp enough to be a great comedy baddie, and this makes the inevitable victory for English feel like a dud moment. That victory is painted as a win for tradition, physicality, honor, and integrity over technology and data and other such modern phenomena, and this is a theme revisited time and again throughout the film. Strikes Again attempts to make a point in its finale--computers are bad, kids--but the effect is dulled by English's heroic moment relying on not one but two pieces of modern tech. You know, to defeat the Zuckerbergian tech giant. Combined with an extended, over-explained VR sequence and a lengthy scene featuring English dancing to Darude's Sandstorm, Strikes Again screams of a mid-life crisis writing room desperately attempting to remain relevant.

　　Thankfully, Atkinson is on fine form, and his outstanding performance consistently entertains, despite the dated jokes he has to play with. You can often see the punchlines coming a mile off, but when you have possibly the best physical comedian since Charlie Chaplin, it's hard not to laugh anyway. He perfectly walks the line between dramatic gravitas and slapstick silliness and carries an otherwise poor film entirely on his back. Thompson's scenes are also worth remembering, as she does her best impression of a head of state desperate to retain control in the face of chaos, but this is home territory for Atkinson, and he takes full advantage.

　　Kurylenko and Miller are underutilized, however. Ophelia has plenty of screen time but few memorable scenes or lines, and Bough never quite achieves the same chemistry with English the pair managed in the 2003 original. As a result, English's character isn't examined as closely as he is in either of the previous films, despite some half-hearted attempts to show him as a more fleshed-out character than he might initially appear. There is potential there, but a throwaway misogynist comment about Bough's wife is not the way to realize it.

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　　All of this leaves a film that feels like a missed opportunity. Strikes Again simply isn't as funny as its predecessors. It presents a boring villain, asks us to care about data privacy, and relies on tired, cliched jokes--surely comedy has surpassed laughing at an old woman with thick glasses who can't drive?

　　Despite its numerous problems, I enjoyed Johnny English Strikes Again. It has moments of great comic timing from Atkinson, some good old fashioned acting from Emma Thompson, and a consistent sense of style--crucially, it grasps that being a spy is cool, and doesn't hesitate to show us so. And what's more English than looking cooler than you are?

　　

The Good	The Bad
Atkinson is a master of physical comedy, and he's in fine form here	Old, cliched jokes that have been done before and whose punchlines are telegraphed
Emma Thompson works wonders with an average script	Boring excuse for a villain delivers no sense of danger or fun
Some genuinely funny moments, and English remains cool despite his failings	Familiar friends return, but their relationships are underdeveloped
	Plot is an insipid mess and major characters' motivations are never truly believable