Newsnight Review discussed the Bond spoof film Johnny English, starring Rowan Atkinson.

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(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

MARK LAWSON: Jeanette, it's an odd detail that the two main writers in fact wrote the script for the last two real James Bond films, if we can call James Bond real. It's parody as well as self-parody. Do they carry it off?

JEANETTE WINTERSON: I think they do. This is the best kind of good-humoured British comedy. It's not going to change the world, and it doesn't have the edge of the Austin Powers spy spoofs. But for what it is, in its own right, it's a great thing for a wet Sunday afternoon.

MARK LAWSON: James, it picks the obvious targets in Bond, which are the women, the gadgets, the foreign baddies. Do those jokes work well?

JAMES PATTERSON: I found it a little - I wasn't familiar with Rowan, and everybody I spoke to before for a couple of days were asking, and they have all been looking forward to it.

MARK LAWSON: He is an English comic hero.

JAMES PATTERSON: There may be a new cinema principle which is never make a movie from a full- length commercial.

MARK LAWSON: I thought one of the interesting things about this, not intended, was the baddie. It's an innocent film. They obviously thought, "We are not going to get involved in Arab baddies, so we will have a French villain."

JEANETTE WINTERSON: Which at the moment is so risky!

MARK LAWSON: That gives it an unexpected edge.

JEANETTE WINTERSON: John Malkovich is very good as the ridiculous Frenchman. The accent is incredible. It will do very well in America, because it's the moment when everybody wants to hate the French.

MARK LAWSON: James, I was very interested in its complete innocence. I have to go and see it again tomorrow, I am afraid, with children ranging from 10 to 4. Unlike Austin Powers, which is rather smutty, it's almost as though Rowan Atkinson wants to be a Chaplin for children.

JAMES PATTERSON: It's so innocent. I do find the Bond films funnier, though.

MARK LAWSON: Tom, isn't it commendable? Atkinson appears to want to make films for children, innocent films?

TOM PAULIN: It was very tedious to watch, but actually rather interesting, the whole English identity thing. The crown jewels going missing. Actually, I thought it was interesting. It's an absolutely awful and terrible and unwatchable and stupid film, it has to be said, but it's about a certain strand of English fear of losing sovereignty to Europe. So it comes from the stable of the late James Goldsmith, I think. It's the most xenophobic film I have ever seen. The idea of English as a prison and this dreadful Frenchman has put the world's prisoners all through England. I kept thinking of refugees. It's a criminally stupid, ridiculous film. Atkinson is a completely wrecked comedian. He's like an ant eater on speed.

JEANETTE WINTERSON: You have had a bad week!

JAMES PATTERSON: Did you like this film, or what?!