Johnny English
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 The one film that had a rough start to a great trilogy franchise.
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Johnny English is a 2003 action-comedy film starring Rowan Atkinson as the title character. The film co-stars Natalie Imbruglia, Ben Miller and John Malkovich.
Plot
Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson), an over-enthusiastic and child-like spy, is sent on a mission to retrieve the stolen crown jewels from Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich), a stuck-up Frenchman who plans to turn England into the world's largest prison after he is crowned king.
Bad Qualities
- This attempt at making a James Bond-style comedy fails on every level.
- Johnny is extremely irritating and is an embarrassment to spies everywhere. He's the kind of spy that would make even Austin Powers cringe.
- The running gag where Johnny's gun falls apart while attempting to shoot criminals is tiresome.
- Dialogue that makes no sense whatsoever.
- Pascal Sauvage is not only pompous, he's also exceedingly annoying beyond belief, arguably even more than Johnny.
- A majority of the jokes fall flat on the floor.
- Johnny shows the Archbishop of Canterbury's bottom on a JumboTron during the crowning of Pascal Sauvage to try and convince people that he's a fake priest.
- The scene where Johnny climbs up into a row of toilets and gets covered in feces was gross beyond belief and it was also gross when all of the feces got all the way into his gun that he was trying to use to shoot Sauvage's henchmen.
Good Qualities
- Some of the gadgets that Johnny uses are pretty neat.
- Certain scenes are pretty amusing (e.g. when Johnny accidentally shows a DVD of himself dancing in his tank top and boxers while lip-syncing to "Does Your Mother Know?" by ABBA instead of the DVD of Sauvage's evil announcement about making England into a prison after being crowned king).
- Johnny has an awesome car.
- Certain performances aren't that bad.
- Despite being child-like and overenthusiastic, Johnny is charismatic.
- The Mr. Bean-like attempts of humor are pretty decent.
- The soundtrack is catchy and decent, especially "Man For All Seasons" and the Johnny English theme song.
- The sequels are an improvement over the first film.
- The idea of a spy parody was a really funny concept. Though it could have been handled better.
Reception
The film was released on April 11, 2003 in the UK and on July 18, 2003 in the US. The film currently holds a 33% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a critic consensus that reads "A tame spy spoof that elicits infrequent chuckles." Roger Ebert commented on the film "Johnny English plays like a tired exercise, a spy spoof with no burning desire to be that, or anything else." His co-critic Richard Roeper commented, "completely unnecessary and nearly chuckle-free spy movie spoof..." The film was followed with two sequels: 2011's Johnny English Reborn and 2018's Johnny English Strikes Again.
Box Office
The film grossed a total of $160 million worldwide. It was released in the United Kingdom on April 11, 2003, and topped the country's box office for the next three weekends, before being overtaken by X2: X-Men United.
