Johnny English
This hold up extremely well, being based around slapstick and vicious self deprecating humour around the protagonist, plus relentless mocking the French.
It’s the little things. When Sauvage is to be crowned King (Pascal Rex, with banknotes, stamps, the works), the TV sets up an hot-line so that people can say when they love about the French, and there’s no calls at all. The ridiculous Malkovich accent is also spot on.
It’s probably no accident the PM looks like Gordon Brown and is not target of any jokes. Contrast with the next film and Cameron, that is a crucifixion, it’s political. Little did we know about the future.
Compared to Austin Powers, this is not a direct James Bond parody, it’s closer to Burn After Reading. English think he is Bond, but it’s actually some twat with a desk job. He is literally the only MI7 agent left, after the true 007 (with the double breasted suits) dies, and the rest die in his funeral. He still saves the day from mere Frenchman, and ejects the girl into the hotel pool.
The seeds for future jokes are planted. The crown jewels are restored with private money.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.