Picking up years after the previous film, Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is in seclusion at a remote monastery following a botched mission. When a new threat arises, English is brought back into service with MI7.
A mysterious group of assassins known as Vortex are planning to assassinate the Chinese premier at an Anglo-Chinese summit. While Johnny goes on the hunt to uncover the identities of the conspirators, he also has to contend with the changes that have taken place in his absence - along with the ghosts of his past.
Hello darkness my old friend...
I feel like I have seen the first 15 minutes of Johnny English Reborn before. It is such a cliche to open a movie with our hero in solitude seeking spiritual healing, and it is specifically a cliche I associate with comedies.
While Rambo 3 is the most famous example, watching Johnny English Reborn I kept recalling similar set ups from Hot Shots Part Deux, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and other movies that I cannot remember.
The thing is, this is a cliche that has been done to death.
The funny thing is, in terms of its story, Johnny English Reborn is better constructed than its predecessor. And there is an attempt to spoof current trends in both the spy genre and the wider world. Which gives it a little more focus than JE1.
The reveal that MI7 is now sponsored by Toshiba, complete with a marketing campaign and brochure is a fun little touch that provides a sociopolitical context that was missing from its predecessor. I am not sure whether it is necessary, but it is a fun bit of world-building that works with the film's theme of time moving on.
In a weird way, this movie reminded me of Skyfall - a fallen agent goes into seclusion and returns to save the day. The similarities are not that strong, but it is kind of interesting that the makers of Bond and JE1 followed a similar approach in terms of addressing the characters' extended absence from screens.
There are a few more tilts toward the changes and familiar tropes in the other British spy franchise: The parkour chase feels like the ultimate send-up of Casino Royale (and all the other films which included the sport), with English finding even more mundane methods than Daniel Craig to follow his opponent.
The golf game resurrects the tired gambit of Bond tipping his hand to the villain that he is in on the scheme. It is a great basis for Atkinson's brand of over-confident inanity ("Shot! ...as was my friend Fisher, actually. In the back...') and it is one of my favourite sequences in the film.
What I appreciated about the script was how it re-contextualised English's arrogance, and made it a liability that affects his relationships with other characters, particularly his new partner, Colin (Daniel Kaluuya). Unlike Bough, who seems to be stuck in a vacuum, Colin's career and life are endangered by English's bungling, and English has to reckon with that.
I am not sure that English's redemption is as well-written as it should be, but there is at least the broad shape of a story here, compared with the original.
Kaluuya is really good, although he does not get an awful lot to do.That sums up the cast as a whole. It is a compliment to the movie that the movie was able to assemble this cast - Gillian Anderson is the new Pegasus, Dominic West is the new bad guy and Rosamund Pike, who is as over-qualified here as she was in Die Another Day, plays an ally of English's who holds the key to his redemption.
While the movie features several strong qualities, the focus on the story does mean there is less of the conveyer-belt of gags that the original featured. The jokes are sharper here, but there are fewer of them, and some of the physical gags fall flat.
It is a strange place to be where the story is stronger and the title character more defined, but the whole reason for watching - jokes - are in short supply. A strange beast this one.
Johnny English Reborn was a hit and a minor critical success, ensuring an eventual return for the bumbling agent.
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