Johnny English Reborn

Plot

Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) has been training in Tibet following a botched mission in Mozambique when he is summoned by MI7. Under his new boss Pegasus (Gillian Anderson), he is put on a mission to investigate a plot to assassinate of the Chinese Premier during scheduled talks with the Prime Minister. He meets fellow agent and old acquaintance Simon Ambrose (Dominic West); MI7's resident quartermaster, Patch Quartermain (Tim McInnerny); and junior agent Colin Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya), who will be English's new assistant.

In Macau, English finds ex-CIA agent Titus Fisher (Richard Schiff), who reveals himself to be a member of Vortex, who were responsible for sabotaging English's Mozambique operation. Vortex holds a secret weapon that requires three metal keys to unlock. But when he reveals his key, Fisher is killed by a grey-haired woman (Pik-Sen Lim) disguised as an apartment cleaner, and another guy steals the key. English chases the thief across Hong Kong and eventually defeats him. However, on his flight back to London, English is tricked by another Vortex operative disguised as a flight attendant, and is humiliated in a meeting with the Foreign Secretary and Pegasus when he attempts to present the key and the plans. He then mistakes Pegasus's mother to be the cleaner assassin and attacks her at Pegasus's kid's party.

Kate Sumner (Rosamund Pike), MI7's behavioral psychologist, uses hypnosis to help English recall his suppressed memory of Mozambique, revealing another Vortex operative, Russian spy Artem Karlenko (Mark Ivanir). English and Tucker meet Karlenko at an exclusive golf course outside London. However, mid-game, the cleaner assassin critically injures Karlenko. As English and Tucker fly by helicopter to take Karlenko to a hospital, Karlenko reveals that the Vortex third key holder is a mole inside MI7, and then dies.

At MI7, English learns that talks between Britain and China will be conducted at a heavily guarded fortress called Le Bastion in the Swiss Alps. Over dinner, English confides with Ambrose about the mole, not knowing that Ambrose is the actual mole. Ambrose tricks English into thinking Quartermain is the traitor, and despite Tucker confronting Ambrose in the bathroom, English dismisses Tucker and lets Ambrose go free, giving him Karlenko's key. At a church, English confronts Quartermain, but realises he has been framed as the traitor. He escapes the MI7 operatives using Quartermain's enhanced wheelchair, and hides at Sumner's flat. After reviewing the footage of the Mozambique mission, Sumner realises the assassin behaved abnormally, and that Vortex has a drug called timoxeline barbebutenol that makes the person suggestible to mind control before killing them. Ambrose picks up Sumner to go to the fortress event, knowing that English had been hiding in the flat.

English persuades Tucker to rejoin him to infiltrate Le Bastion. English warns Pegasus of the threat, but unknowingly imbibes the drink containing the drug. Ambrose tells English to subdue Pegasus, which he does with a punch to the face. Assigning English to be the Prime Minister's bodyguard inside the safe room, he orders him to kill the Chinese Premier using a pistol disguised as lipstick. However, English attempts to resist the drug. Tucker arrives and interrupts Ambrose's communication feed. Ambrose escapes, but the chemical enters its lethal stage, and English falls to the floor. Sumner arrives and is able to revive English with a passionate kiss.

With Ambrose heading down the mountain, English pursues him by parachuting and then snowmobilling down a mountainside. The two spies fight in a aerial tram, but English prevails after recalling his training in Tibet where he was repeatedly kicked in the crotch, but falls off of the lift. Ambrose shoots at English, but English is able to use his spy umbrella's rocket launcher to destroy the lift. Later on, English is to have his knighthood reinstated by the Queen. During the ceremony, the Queen is revealed to be the killer cleaner again, which leads English to attack the real Queen by accident, realising his mistake only when the killer cleaner is caught.

Cast

Production

On 28 March 2007, Atkinson confirmed on Richard & Judy that a script for a second film was being worked on. In an interview for Mr. Bean's Holiday, Atkinson also said that there was quite a moderate chance for a sequel. On 8 April 2010, Universal Pictures first announced that they were producing a sequel to Johnny English, seven years following the first film.

In June 2010, it was announced that Daniel Kaluuya had been added to the cast. In July 2010, Ben Miller, who featured as the sidekick 'Bough' in Johnny English, claimed had not been approached to reprise his role. On 10 July 2010, Deadline.com reported that Gillian Anderson would be playing a MI7 secret agent named Pamela Head.

Filming began on 11 September 2010, in Central London at Cannon Street, with further production scheduled for the week beginning 13 September 2010, at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire and later in Hawley Woods in Hampshire, Macau and Hong Kong.

Filming took place on The Mall, London in Central London on 25 September 2010. Filming also took place in Kent, along the A299 carriageway and Cliffs End, Ramsgate.

The "Johnny English Theme" song from the original film is used four times in the score. Ben Miller, who played Bough in the previous movie appeared, but his scenes were cut from the final film.

Car

The car that Johnny English drives was a Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé with an experimental 9.0 litre V16 engine. There are only a few of these engines in existence, produced during tests for the Phantom Coupé, and they were not used in production models. For the production of the film, Atkinson approached the company and requested that they install one into a car, making the vehicle seen in the film unique.

Release

Johnny English Reborn was originally going to release on 29 July 2011. The film was then pushed back to 16 September 2011, however, it was delayed again, this time to 7 October 2011.

Home media

Johnny English Reborn was released on DVD and Blu-ray combo pack featuring the first film on 14 February 2012 in the United Kingdom, and on 28 February 2012 in North America.

Box office

Johnny English Reborn opened to an estimated $3,833,300 in its first weekend in United States and Canada. In the United Kingdom, it grossed $7,727,025, $2,628,344 in Australia, and $3,391,190 in Germany. After five weeks in release, it grossed $8,305,970 in the United States and Canada and $151,772,616 elsewhere, bringing to a total of $160,078,586.

Critical response

Much like its predecessor, the film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 39% of 87 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.8 out of 10. The website's consensus is "Arguably a marginal improvement on its mostly-forgotten predecessor, Johnny English Reborn nonetheless remains mired in broad, tired spy spoofing that wastes Rowan Atkinson's once considerable comedic talent". Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 46 based on 20 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B" on an A+ to F scale.

On the Australian television programme At the Movies, Margaret Pomeranz rated the film 3 stars and David Stratton rated the film 2 stars (the highest being 5 stars). Indian film critic Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India gave the film a positive review praising Atkinson's characteristic flair for comedy once again, giving it a 4 star rating out of 5.

Sequel

In May 2017, it was announced that pre-production had begun on a third film, set to be released in October 2018.