I've always said that parodying James Bond is a dangerous thing to do, since it's essentially become a parody of itself. And judging by the reviews of Johnny English, this was another attempt not worth making. It all came about when Rowan Atkinson starred as a bumbling British secret agent in a few commercials for the credit card company Barclaycard about a decade ago, and the character became so popular that someone decided to turn it into a movie. Incredibly, Johnny English was co-written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who wrote both The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Equally as incredibly, they got John Malkovich to star in it. Anyway, while David Arnold added yet another layer of dismal failure to the most recent (and worst) Bond movie, Edward Shearmur shows him how it's done with his magnificently entertaining music here.

The album opens with song "A Man For All Seasons", sung by Robbie Williams and written by - wait for it - Hans Zimmer. Zimmer's involvement stemmed from when the score was to have been a Media Ventures effort penned by Harry Gregson-Williams; when that score was tossed out, Zimmer's song remained. Not sure why really, I'm sure it would be very easy to write a Bond song for Williams to sing - he seems perfect for the job - but this one is quite a poor effort. Also appearing on the album is a self-penned work by the "classical" group Bond, which isn't actually a million miles from the style of the score, a track by Moloko and an ABBA song.

As for the score itself, it almost plays like a composer's wet dream realised - everything is massive, with Arnold-style action cues combining the orchestra with synth percussion seeming somehow far more Bond-like than what Arnold himself came up with, and delightful nods to John Barry in both the main theme and the more romantic material.

Just give the guy the next Bond movie; Johnny English is the most entertaining score of the year so far.

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