Johnny English Reborn wants to be a bigger, louder, funnier sequel to the 2003 film that made Rowan Atkinson a star again. It mostly succeeds at being bigger and louder. It fails at being funnier.
The setup is simple. Eight years after the first film, Johnny English has been training at a monastery in Tibet to recover from a failed mission that cost him his knighthood. Now MI-7’s new director, Pamela “Pegasus” Thornton, calls him back to investigate an assassination plot against the Chinese premier during talks with the UK prime minister. English meets fellow agent Simon Ambrose, MI-7’s quartermaster Patch Quartermain, and junior agent Colin Tucker, his assigned assistant. The trail leads to Hong Kong, where English finds Titus Fisher, a former CIA agent who admits he’s a member of Vortex, the group that sabotaged the Mozambique mission.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures.
Fisher’s Key
The film borrows heavily from the James Bond template. English gets the latest high-tech weaponry and gadgets, and the tagline promises that a little intelligence goes a long way. That promise is not kept. The film’s intelligence is thin. The villain is Vortex, a shadowy organisation holding a secret weapon unlocked by three keys. Fisher holds one key. The other two belong to characters we never fully meet, and the film spends little time explaining why anyone would build a weapon that requires three separate keys to unlock.
English recovers one key, only to have it stolen back by a flight attendant who turns out to be an accomplice. He is humiliated in a meeting with the Foreign Secretary and Pegasus when he tries to present the key and conspiracy. He then attacks Pegasus’s mother at a children’s party, mistaking her for the Killer Cleaner. That’s the movie’s idea of wit.
The Cast
Rowan Atkinson carries the film, as he did in the original. His deadpan timing and physical comedy still work. But the script doesn’t give him much to play off. Dominic West’s Simon Ambrose is a straight man whose jokes fall flat. Rosamund Pike’s Kate Sumner, the behavioural psychologist who helps English recall his suppressed memory, is a competent character who exists mainly to explain things to the audience. Daniel Kaluuya’s Colin Tucker is a junior agent who gets injured and rescued repeatedly, and his presence adds nothing beyond a reason for English to have a sidekick.
Gillian Anderson’s Pamela “Pegasus” Thornton is a new character and a welcome addition. She’s sharp and funny, and she gives English a foil worthy of the material. Tim McInnerny returns as Patch Quartermain, and the two actors have a history together from the Blackadder series. Their scenes together are the best in the film.
The Plot Holes
The film is full of holes that should have been patched. Why does Vortex need three keys to unlock its weapon? Why does the killer cleaner disguise herself as a cleaner in the first place? Why does English attack Pegasus’s mother at a children’s party? These questions don’t get answered, and the film moves on without addressing them.
The Mozambique incident, which cost English his knighthood, is referenced but never fully explained. We see English’s suppressed memory through hypnosis, and we meet Artem Karlenko, the Vortex operative who is posing as millionaire Sergei Pudovkin. But the film doesn’t give us a clear sense of what went wrong or why it matters.
The Cameos
The film is packed with cameos. Wale Ojo plays President Chambal. Chris Jarman plays Michael Tembe. Siu Hun Li plays “Chinese Susan,” a Vortex henchman who impersonates a female flight attendant. Christina Chong plays flight attendant Barbara. Paul Che and Courtney Wu play Chinese men in spectacles. Ellen Thomas plays Tucker’s mother. Ian Shaw plays MI7 Agent No. 2. Rupert Vansittart, who appeared with Atkinson in several episodes of Mr. Bean, plays rich yacht owner Derek. Isla Blair plays his wife Shirley. Miles Jupp appears as a technician in Patch’s lab.
Atkinson’s daughter Lily Atkinson has a cameo as the girl who gets her helmet stolen by English. Ben Miller reprised his role of Jeremy Bough from the previous film, but his scene was cut from the final version.
That’s a lot of names. Most of them appear for a minute or less. The cameo count is impressive, but it doesn’t add depth to the story. It just adds clutter.
The Humour
The humour is hit-and-miss. Some gags land, like the moment English attacks Pegasus’s mother. Others miss entirely, like the scene where English is humiliated in front of the Foreign Secretary. The film leans on slapstick and physical comedy, and Atkinson delivers both with skill. But the jokes about espionage and international politics are often unfunny, relying on stereotypes about Chinese assassins and British bureaucrats that feel dated.
The film also borrows from the first movie’s premise of a bumbling agent who somehow saves the day. In the original, that premise worked because the film knew it was a parody. Here, the premise is taken seriously, and the film expects us to believe that a man who can’t drive a car and can’t aim a gun can stop a conspiracy involving some of the world’s most powerful organisations. That expectation is not met.
The Running Order
| Event | Time |
|---|---|
| English called back to MI-7 | Present day |
| English trained in Tibet | Eight years earlier |
| Fisher killed by the Killer Cleaner | Hong Kong |
| Key stolen by flight attendant | En route to London |
| English attacked Pegasus’s mother | Children’s party |
| Karlenko revealed as Vortex operative | Hypnosis session |
| Karlenko dies in hospital | After helicopter ride |
The film follows this order, moving from the call to duty to the final reveal. It’s a simple structure, but the pacing suffers because the middle section drags. The investigation takes too long to resolve, and the climax feels rushed. The film wants to end on a joke, but the joke isn’t earned by anything that comes before it.
The Final Word
Johnny English Reborn is a bigger, louder failure than its predecessor. It has a stronger cast and better production values, but it lacks the wit that made the original work. The plot is thin, the villains are uninteresting, and the humour is uneven. Atkinson is always watchable, but he can’t carry a film this weak on his own.
The film is a disappointment for fans of the series and a missed opportunity for general audiences. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not a success either. It’s a film that wanted to be a blockbuster and ended up being a bloated mess.
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