Johnny English: Reborn Review

Johnny English has returned! The question you got to ask yourself is, why?

When I heard that Johnny English was making his triumphant return to our cinemas, I didn’t really know how to feel. To me it always felt like one of those franchises that never got off the ground, a film that has some good points but had by this point been generally written off as simply ‘mediocre’, despite its genuinely good cast. I didn’t really think that anyone thought back on it that fondly, or felt as if a sequel was warranted, nor that it made enough money to require one of those awful ‘just for the cash’ sequels that we all love so much. So what is Johnny English Reborn? A Reboot? Kicking an already Dead Horse? Or was did Rowen just feel like giving it another go? Well who knows, and in the end it doesn’t matter all that much. Despite the time gap, we have another film which is essentially of the same mould, with many of the same laughs (or similar types of laughs at least) and another story which in the end is just a vehicle for Rowen’s funny Mr Bean-like antics. It’s as if the last eight years never happened!

As with the original Johnny English, Reborn follows Rowen Atkinson as, Johnny English (duh!), the Spoof Spy who always gets into the most comedic slapstick scrapes. Replacing the slightly ludicrous plot of the original, we have a more down to earth tale (well sort of). We catch up with Mr English in Tibet acting all Monk after he found himself thrown out of MI7 (because obviously they couldn’t just say MI6) due to some past mishaps in Mozambique. After some initial antics he is recalled by MI7 to stop an assassination attempt on the Chinese premier. On returning and contacting MI7 (followed by a number of slaptick comedic scrapes – cats falling out of windows, weird facial expressions, dick jokes, that sort of thing) he is off to contact an ex-CIA agent, Fisher, with his new partner Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya – Sadly Ben Miller is nowhere to be seen). After the untimely death of Fisher due to a evil cleaning lady/mega assassin, Johnny English must find out about a secret organisation by the name of ‘Vortex’ within which Fisher was somehow involved. This leads him to yet more comedic scrapes, and right to the heart of a conspiracy that would spell the end of hilarious eyebrow movements.

Obviously the heart of the film is Rowen, and the film certainly seems to attempt to cater to his strengths, though more the Slapstick Mr Bean Style rather than the witty Blackadder Atkinson, which is certainly a shame. Sure, the best parts of the film are definitely when Rowen is engaged in some kind of physical comedic act – stupid faces, body spasms – that kind of thing, but there isn’t really anything as good replicated within the dialogue to go alongside this. Despite the genius of Rowen as an actor (and I would still argue this, despite his more dubious career choices in the more recent years), it seems that even he cannot steer a ship run by mediocre writers. What was definitely missing was a sort of Richard Curtis figure, someone who can craft the witty dialogue that Rowen deserves. Instead, its most either Spy clichés (or not very subtle twists on the like), or bargain basement raids of the lowbrow cupboard. Hey I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy this sort of thing, when effective, and it is certainly sometimes effective, but less often than not; there isn’t really too much that could be labelled clever, or witty, and for the most part, the film seems to have only one joke. Overall, it was a funny film, but I noticed that for the majority of its duration, apart from some truly great scenes, it squeezed only slight giggles of laughter from the crowd as appose to full blown hysterics.

This isn’t helped by the fact that English is really the only funny character, apart from some odd moments from his partner tucker. This obviously fits the tone of bumbling idiot in a serious world, but sometimes it just left the film a bit empty when Mr English isn’t on screen, though thankfully this wasn’t too often.

Apart from Rowen, all the other actors are all pretty low key and rather dull. In the original you had both John Malkavich and Ben Miller to latch onto when Johnny wasn’t within shot, both of which were, if not always funny, at least interesting (I mean John Malkavich as a crazy Frenchmen, who doesn’t love that?!?!). But here, there isn’t really anyone who is interesting in remotely the same way. Daniel Kaluuya as his partner brings some things to the table, but on the most part seems rather stilted when onscreen with Rowen. He essentially plays the same role as Miller, the lesser agent who actually knows more than hapless English, though with less vigour. Meanwhile, Kate (Rosamund Pike), who is Johnny’s generic love interest, is pretty much just that, rather generic and almost totally bland. At the same time, though I am happy that The Wire star Dominic West is getting work, he doesn’t bring much to the table beyond acting the suave agent.

I don’t really be all negative, as I didn’t hate everything about the film, it truly did have some great moments, and the plot, though rather thin on the ground, was good enough to keep the story going at a good pace, a story which was essentially present to get Mr English from one awkward situation to another. Meanwhile, the action, when it is present, is all pretty fun and entertaining, especially with the hapless English at the centre of it. Overall, it seems as about as successful as the original, which I guess is something to be proud of (?) Hey, it could of been a lot worse and for it is, it is entertaining, though almost completely mediocre. If it wasn’t for Rowen, there would be nothing here at all, and that probably says it all.