There's certainly something agelessly and reliably funny about a good hard hit to the groin. But who knew it could also be a cultural experience?
Rowan Atkinson admits it took him a while to realize how often he opted for testicle abuse in Johnny English Reborn, his sequel to the 2003 spy spoof Johnny English.
The movie, in fact, opens with the exiled bungling spy on a vision-quest in a Tibetan monastery, where martial arts training includes hard hits south of the equator, as it were, and endurance exercises in which large rocks are pulled by the acolyte's scrotum.
"I'm only now realizing how often in the movie a joke or action of that sort occurs. I feel as though it's quite a regular feature of the narrative," Atkinson says over the phone from Los Angeles, acknowledging that he still takes criticism from people who admired the sophistication of early work like The Black Adder, and look askance at his broader humour in Mr. Bean and Johnny English.
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But about that opening ... "The odd thing about it is that we got the idea from truth. That is exactly what they do, believe it or not. You can go on YouTube and see videos of these activities. The idea of pulling large rocks with your testicles, you may think we've invented it, but actual Tibetan monks do these things -- without comic intent of course.
"Our writer, Hamish McColl came into a writers' meeting one day and said, 'I found the most fantastic stuff on YouTube!' And he showed it and we just reproduced it in our film."
This spiritually inspired bit of low comedy is a prime example of the physicality that turned Atkinson's Johnny English from a character in a British series of '90s credit card ads to a 2003 feature film that grossed $160 million worldwide -- only a small part of it from the Holy Grail American box office. Instead, it topped the box office in places like Spain and Finland.
This is a tough thing for an English-language comedy to do. But Atkinson had already been there with the near-mime Mr. Bean, which crossed language barriers with ease.
"Obviously, Johnny English plays on the reputation of Mr. Bean in these places because the same actor is playing the two parts. But it's got to do with more than that. It's simple accessible comedy. Tonally, it's a similar comedy to Mr. Bean, with similar visual elements.
"The world of James Bond is very understandable to people, and gadgets are very enjoyable, so there are just very strong, visual elements to it."
In Johnny English Reborn, the inept super-spy is called back from the ashram (where he'd been atoning for allowing the president of Mozambique to be assassinated under his watch). His new assignment: crack a secret society of hired killers who are targeting the president of China.
He's on a short leash by "MI-7" boss Pegasus (Gillian Anderson), and captures the fancy of spy psychologist Kate (ex-Bond girl Rosamund Pike of Die Another Day).
"I think she does very well," Atkinson says of the casting of Pike. "It's not always easy for an actress to make a romantic thing in a comedy movie work, because in the end you're always wondering how anyone could fall for somebody who is the creator of so much chaos.
"But I think you can sort of see in the end some of what she can see in Johnny. He is a good, honest man who doesn't stop until the job is done. Of course, he also suffers from overconfidence (and) smugness."
Why Johnny English didn't sell in America (it grossed about $30 mil there) is another question. "But that's been the story of my film career, my reliance on the international market and being fairly independent of success in the United States.
"I always get the feeling when I'm talking to American journalists, this slight irritation on their part that we don't seem to rely on them or their country very much for commercial success. They say, 'You've already made $100 million so what are you doing here?'"
jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca
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