Johnny English Reborn

The second Johnny English follows in the footsteps of its predecessor in terms of atmosphere and plot, and while it doesn't offer much that's new, it's an enjoyable and funny hundred minutes of screen time. We're once again dealing with treacherous villains, and once again we witness English getting from one trouble to the next (the boss's mother and the Queen could tell you about it). But it still worked for me and the plot pretty much moved along so I didn't get bored. (09/05/2023)

The threat of global terrorism is set aside, as Johnny English is back. The significance of the training that the agent undergoes in the prologue remains concealed until the final minutes. English’s outward expressions exhibit the same degree of dim-wittedness. He doesn’t understand and refuses to understand what is happening around him, which again and again gives rise to jokes of a similar nature. These are distinguishable by their degree of predictability (mostly a very high degree) and the extent to which their punchlines involve a man getting kicked in the crotch. Atkinson used up his best grimaces long ago and once more resorts to his Mr. Bean character (the mailbag sketch), unlike which English operates in an overly serious context in order to amuse us at least with his surreal eccentricity. (This is why the brutally stylised Austin Powers works better, as every hint of seriousness is immediately shot through with Myers’s clowning.) As in the first Johnny English, a feeble romantic subplot appears as if from a completely different film and its premature termination seems to illustrate English’s inability (impossibility) to grow up and become a man. The few flashes of more ambitious humour (the rooftop “chase”) are not sufficiently developed to the point that Johnny English Reborn could be described as an imaginative commentary on the transformations that the spy-movie genre has undergone in recent years. English comes across as less of an idiot particularly thanks to the fact that he got a bigger idiot for a partner. Both of them are analogous to film enthusiasts who look up to dauntless agents like James Bond. They are oblivious to what is clear in the film’s message – if the world is to be saved, it won’t be saved by heroes, but by chance. Learning something of that sort from a genre spectacle would almost be cause for concern if the spectacle wasn’t so dumb as to discourage paying attention to any of its subtextual messages. The wait for the next Bond movie can be shortened by more entertaining activities. Such as listening to the Queen’s Christmas messages. 50% (10/12/2011)

One half of the plot, which even 007 would (almost) be proud of, the other half a continuation of the traditions of classic comedies from the 60s á la Louis de Funès. Thanks to the perpetually stone-faced expression of the main character, the second salvo of Johnny's escapades is infinitely enjoyable, even with the unnecessary overdose of the most trivial gag of the whole film. The highlight is then Rowan Atkinson's perfect cooking lesson, which you better practice painstakingly before you try your hand at it. (11/19/2011)

A sequel that relies far too much on mimicry and the unlimited self-mockery of Atkinson, or rather his lead character. I'm not saying it's not fun, after all, who does mime and self-mockery better these days than Mr.Bean? But the charismatic Johnny English certainly didn't deserve such a dumb and illogical script after the nice first episode. A comedy on the basis of "switch off and laugh at everything", in my opinion quite unworthy of the clever cinematic humour that even much less renowned filmmakers across the Channel manage without such problems and with deaf, blind, dumb spots... 60% (02/12/2012)

This amounts to unnecessary suffering that is only functional when the last two Bond films are made fun of. Otherwise, the film offers a crystalline distillate of essential awkwardness in which Atkinson's "poker face" is completely off, you can read the villain from the opening credits, and the only pleasant surprise left is that Gillian Anderson is an utterly luxurious "MILF." :) (10/25/2011)