憨豆特工英文影评(整理)

一

S

Can

we

all

pretty

much

agree

that

the

spy

genre

has

been

spoofed

to

death?

The James Bond movies have supplied the target for more than 40 years,

and generations of Bond parodies have come and gone, from Dean Martin's

Matt

Helm

to

Mike

Myers'

Austin

Powers.

If

Powers

is

the

funniest

of the Bondian parodies,

mild-mannered ramble down familiar paths.

The movie stars Rowan Atkinson, best known in America as Mr. Bean, star

of

(1997),

and

as

the

star

of

the

PBS

reruns

of

Black

Adder,

where he played countless medieval schemers and bumblers in

gripping

sitcom

since

1380.

He's

the

master

of

looking

thoughtful

after

having committed a grievous breach of manners, logic, the law, personal

hygiene or common sense.

In

as the star of a long- running series of credit card commercials. Johnny

English

is

a

low-level

functionary

in

the

British

Secret

Service,

pressed

into active duty when a bomb destroys all of the other agents. His

assignment: Foil a plot to steal the Crown Jewels.

The evil mastermind is Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich), a French

billionaire

who

believes

his

family

was

robbed

of

the

crown

two

centuries

ago.

Now

the

head

of

a

megabillion-dollar

international

chain

of

prisons,

he

poses

as

a

benefactor

who

pays

to

protect

the

jewels

in

new

theft-proof

quarters in the Tower of London--but actually plans to steal them and

co-opt

the

Archbishop

of

Canterbury

to

crown

him

king.

And

how

does

Queen

Elizabeth

II

feel

about

this?

The

film's

funniest

moment

has

her

signing

an

abdication

form

after

a

gun

is

pointed

at

the

head

of

one

of

her

beloved

corgis.

The

movie

is

a

series

of

scenes

demonstrating

how

dangerously

incompetent

Johnny English is, as when he lectures on how the thieves got into the

Tower without noticing he is standing on the edge of a tunnel opening.

He can't even be trusted to drive during a chase scene, and spends most

of one in a car suspended from a moving wreckers' crane. Meanwhile, the

beautiful Lorna Campbell (Natalie Imbruglia) turns up coincidentally

wherever he goes, performing a variety of functions, of which the only

explicable one is to be the beautiful Lorna Campbell.

Malkovich

does

what

can

be

done

with

Pascal

Sauvage,

I

suppose,

including

the French accent we assume is deliberately bad, since Malkovich lives

in France and no doubt has a better one. The character is such a stick

and a stooge, however, that all Malkovich can do is stand there and be

mugged by the script. Funnier work is done by Ben Miller, as Johnny's

sidekick Bough (pronounced

funeral, Bough saves the day by passing him off as an escaped lunatic.

And

so

on.

Rowan

Atkinson

is

terrifically

popular

in

Britain,

less

so

here,

because as a nation we do not find understatement hilarious.

English

tired exercise, a

spy spoof with

no burning desire

to

be

that,

or

anything

else.

The

thing

you

have

to

credit

Mike

Myers

for

is

that

he

loves

to

play

Austin

Powers

and

is

willing

to

try

anything

for

a laugh. Atkinson seems

to have had

Johnny English imposed

upon him. And

thus upon us.

二

Would you believe... that Johnny English is the most amazingly funny

satire

ever

made

about

spies?

[No.]

Would

you

believe...

that

it's

a

pretty

funny spoof of the Bond movies? [No.] Would you believe... that it's a

sporadically amusing lampoon in the same vein as Austin Powers? [No.]

Would you believe... that it's basically a dog that should have been

released in August with all of the other late-summer refuse? [Yes.]

I didn't have high hopes for Johnny English. After all, there have been

so

many

007

parodies

in

the

last

few

years

that

the

genre

is

oversaturated.

(In fact, with Die Another Day, even the

gotten into the act. That movie was as close to self- parody as the

venerable series has gotten since The

Man with

the Golden Gun.) If there

was cause for optimism, however, it had to do with Rowan Atkinson, the

gifted British comedian behind such ventures as

Bean.

a

bathing

suit

on

national

TV,

he

can't

invigorate

this

overused

premise.

Johnny English is a tamer Austin Powers crossed with

very little in the way of effective humor.

Atkinson

plays

Britain's

most

inept

spy,

Johnny

English.

At

the

beginning

of the movie, he has a desk job, but, when all of the senior agents are

killed

in

a

bomb

blast,

Johnny

and

his

assistant,

Bough

(Ben

Miller),

are

recruited to go on active duty and discover who stole the Crown Jewels.

The

thief

turns

out

to

be

a

Frenchman

named

Pascal

Sauvage

(John

Malkovich,

employing

one

of

the

worst

French

accents

in

recent

film

history).

Sauvage

has

designs

upon

the

British

throne,

but,

in

order

to

recognize

his

goal,

he must force the Queen to abdicate, find someone to impersonate the

Archbishop of Canterbury, and evade the efforts of Johnny, Bough, and a

pretty Interpol agent named Lorna Campbell (Natalie Imbruglia).

Although

the

level

of

gross- out

comedy

in

Johnny

English

doesn't

achieve

that of Austin Powers, there's still a memorably gut-churning moment in

which

Johnny

climbs

through

an

active

sewer

pipe

and

emerges

from

a

toilet.

In terms of failed comedic moments, that one's right up there with the

scene in which the Archbishop of Canterbury bares his buttocks for the

entire

cathedral

to

see.

Laughing

at

these

scenes

requires

that

the

viewer

be

drunk,

stoned,

or

under

the

age

of

14.

To

be

fair,

Johnny

English

does

have one amusing sequence. It occurs after Johnny mistakenly injects

himself with a muscle relaxant and spends the next few moments flopping

around like a rag doll.

As far as uniqueness goes, there's little that this movie attempts that

hasn't

been

explored

in

films

from

A

Man

Called

Flint

to

Spy

Hard

to

Austin

Powers.

Director

Peter

Howitt,

whose

last

memorable

movie

was

his

debut,

Sliding

Doors,

doesn't

seem

to

understand

what's

funny

and

what's

routine.

In

the

final

analysis,

Johnny

English

isn't

just

forgettable;

it's

a

waste

of time. But, for

those looking

for

something positive, this

is the only

movie I can recall

that features

music from both

ABBA (

Mother

Know

diversity!

三

“A brilliantly funny Clown for all Seasons”

Of

all

the

main

character

types

in

film

and

other

performance

genres,

the

Clown is perhaps the only one permitted exemption from the usual

requirements of the character arc. To satisfy an audience, heroes,

heroines and villains must strive and develop through dealing with a

variety of conflicts, obstacles, suffering and deprivation. By the end,

some new realisation should be reached, some growth or lesson gained at

least. While the Clown character may well do all the above, s/he is not

necessarily required to do anything but remain a figure of fun. If s/he

does learn something, it may well be of an appropriately simple nature,

and the interaction is usually humorous. By definition the Clown is an

unaware fool. Usually a person of little actual self-knowledge, he

possesses

delusions

of

his

own

abilities the

fa?ade

of

which

he

believes

convinces everyone around him and which he takes pains to maintain.

The Clown represents the common man stripped bare of all but his

self- conceit. We can both identify affectionately with his woes, and at

the same be relieved that we are not so foolish as he. Secretly, we may

even

be

glad

of

the

lessons

he

illustrates,

or

ruefully

recognise

our

own.

Often

the

quintessential

Clown

is

so

foolish

that

s/he

remains

unaffected