Johnny English

Johnny English
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Howitt
Written by	Neal Purvis Robert Wade William Davies
Produced by	Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Mark Huffam
Starring	Rowan Atkinson Natalie Imbruglia Ben Miller John Malkovich
Cinematography	Remi Adefarasin
Edited by	Robin Sales
Music by	Edward Shearmur
Production companies	StudioCanal Working Title Films
Distributed by	Universal Pictures (International) Mars Distribution (France)[1]
Release date	11 April 2003 (2003-04-11) (United Kingdom) 18 July 2003 (2003-07-18) (United States)
Running time	88 minutes[2]
Countries	United Kingdom[3] France United States[4]
Language	English
Budget	$40 million[2]
Box office	$160.5 million[2]

Johnny English (taglined in some countries as "Little Brother of James Bond") is a 2003 spy comedy film directed by Peter Howitt and written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and William Davies. It is a British-French venture produced by StudioCanal and Working Title Films, and distributed by Universal Pictures.

Starring Rowan Atkinson in the title role, Natalie Imbruglia, Ben Miller and John Malkovich, it is the first installment of the Johnny English film series and serves as a parody and homage to the spy genre, mainly the James Bond film series, as well as Atkinson's Mr. Bean character. The character is also related to Atkinson's bumbling spy character from a series of adverts in the United Kingdom for Barclaycard in the 1990s.

Released theatrically in the United States on 18 July 2003, the film met with mixed reviews from critics but was commercially successful and grossed $160 million worldwide against a budget of $40 million.^[2] The film was released in the United Kingdom on 11 April 2003 and topped the country's box office for the next three weekends, before being overtaken by X2.^[5][6][7] It was followed by two sequels, Johnny English Reborn (2011) and Johnny English Strikes Again (2018).

Plot[]

Johnny English is an MI7 employee, working a desk job while dreaming of being their most trusted agent, Agent One. After Agent One dies in a submarine accident unknowingly caused by English, the remaining agents are killed by a bombing at Agent One's funeral by two criminals working for a yet unrevealed villain, leaving English as the lone surviving agent capable of finishing Agent One's mission.

Assigned to thwart a plot to steal the newly restored Crown Jewels in an event hosted by prison owner Pascal Sauvage. English meets the mysterious Lorna Campbell at the jewels' unveiling at the Tower of London. During a sudden blackout, the jewels are stolen. In the aftermath, English accidentally knocks out the deputy head of security and pretends to fight an imaginary "assailant" to cover his mistakes; he makes up a false description of the suspect to MI7 head Pegasus.

English and his assistant Angus Bough discover the jewels were removed via a hole dug beneath their display case. Following the tunnel, they confront the German thieves Dieter Klein and Klaus Vendetta, which escape from their hideout. After pursuing the wrong car, English gatecrashes a funeral and Bough pretends that he is a lunatic in order to get him out of the situation.

English connects the thieves to Pascal Sauvage, which helped restore the jewels. Pegasus finds English's claims absurd and warns English not to involve Sauvage, as he is his personal friend. In the car park, English and Bough are attacked by Vendetta but are unharmed. English again encounters Campbell in a YO! Sushi restaurant, recognising her motorcycle. Having seen her at two crime scenes, English's suspicions deepen when her records cannot be found on any government computer.

English and Bough parachute into Sauvage's headquarters, but English mistakenly lands on an identical tower, the City Hospital. Reaching the correct building, the two learn that Sauvage, a descendant of Charles Edward Stuart, plans to make himself king, using an impostor to impersonate the Archbishop of Canterbury. English observes that the fake archbishop has a tattoo on his bottom saying Jesus is coming — look busy. Campbell arrives, revealed to be an Interpol agent tracking Sauvage. With evidence of Sauvage's involvement, English crashes a reception hosted by Sauvage but is suspended by Pegasus for his clumsy actions.

Sauvage scraps his plan to use the fake Archbishop and instead sends his minions to force Queen Elizabeth II to abdicate by threatening her corgis, causing the entire line of succession to be swept clean for Sauvage to become king. Campbell, now placed in charge of the assignment by Pegasus, visits English and convinces him to travel with her to Sauvage's French château to investigate. Eavesdropping on Sauvage's meeting with internationally renowned criminals, English and Campbell learn he plans to transform all of England into the world's biggest prison. The agents are exposed when English accidentally activates a microphone, and they are taken as prisoners.

Bough rescues English and Campbell and they race to stop Sauvage's coronation. English crashes the coronation and discovers that the archbishop is genuine, following a stint in which he exposes the archbishop's bare bottom in the erroneous assumption that it would bear the tattoo he had observed earlier. Undeterred, English orders Bough to play the incriminating DVD, only to find it is footage of himself lip-syncing to ABBA's "Does Your Mother Know" in his underclothes; Sauvage had bugged English's flat. Sneaking away, English swings in to steal St Edward's Crown from the Archbishop. Sauvage attempts to kill English, who drops the crown. However, English falls from the wire, lands on the throne, knocking Sauvage off and then is crowned instead. In his first act as king, English has Sauvage arrested and restores the Queen to the throne, simply requesting a knighthood as a reward.

Sauvage is awaiting trial for high treason, a crime which still carries the death penalty (though inaccurately labelled), and if found guilty, he's asked that his brain be donated to medical science for further research into the causes of hyper manic schizophrenia, while English and Campbell drive to southern France only for English to accidentally eject her out of his car while leaning in to kiss her.

Cast[]

• Rowan Atkinson as Johnny English
• Natalie Imbruglia as Lorna Campbell, an INTERPOL agent
• Ben Miller as Angus Bough, English's partner in the field
• John Malkovich as Pascal Sauvage, the main antagonist, the distant descendant of James II
• Oliver Ford Davies as the Archbishop of Canterbury
• Tim Pigott-Smith as Pegasus, the head of MI7
• Kevin McNally as the Prime Minister
• Douglas McFerran as Klaus Vendetta
• Steve Nicolson as Dieter Klein
• Greg Wise as Agent One, MI7's top agent whose death English is unknowingly responsible for
• Tim Berrington as Roger, an MI7 agent who helps discover the identity of the "crook" at the Tower of London
• Prunella Scales as Queen Elizabeth II
• Tasha de Vasconcelos as Countess Alexandra
• Nina Young as Pegasus' Secretary
• Sam Beazley as Elderly Man at the Hospital
• Kevin Moore as Doctor
• Jack Raymond as French Reception Waiter
• Jenny Galloway as the Foreign Secretary
• Chris Tarrant as Radio DJ at Sauvage's coronation
• Trevor McDonald as Newsreader, who reveals Sauvage's fate

Production[]

In March 2000, before the release of Maybe Baby, Atkinson signed up to star as a spoof 007, with the news becoming official.^[8]

In July 2002, Johnny English principal photography commenced . The film shot for fourteen weeks, filming at Shepperton Studios, on location in London and St. Albans, and finally setting down in Monte Carlo for two days to complete filming the final scene.^[9] In September 2002, it was announced that Natalie Imbruglia would star alongside Atkinson.^[10]

The character of Johnny English himself is based on a similar character called Richard Latham, who Atkinson played in a series of British television adverts for Barclaycard.^[11] The character of Bough (pronounced 'Boff') was retained from the adverts though another actor, Henry Naylor, played the part in the ads. Some of the gags from the adverts made it into the film, including English incorrectly identifying a waiter, and inadvertently shooting himself with a tranquilliser ballpoint pen.

Filming locations[]

• Some scenes were filmed at Canary Wharf in London—indeed, the film duplicates the single real tower into two identical ones (albeit on the real site) for the fictional London Hospital and Sauvage's headquarters at 1 Canada Square.
• The scenes set in Westminster Abbey were filmed in St. Albans Abbey:^[12] though this connection is solely implied through the dialogue—for this footage is never intercut with footage of the real abbey's exterior. The interior (with the televisual screen hiding the St Albans organ) is clearly St Albans. The choir singing in the coronation scene is St Albans Cathedral Choir.
• Both the exteriors and interiors in the opening credits sequence scene are in Mentmore Towers.^[13]
• The exterior and interior of MI7's headquarters which English enters at the start is Freemasons' Hall, London,^[12] which is also used as Thames House (the MI5 headquarters) in Spooks.
• The scenes where Johnny English drives into Dover, Kent along the A20 road (with Dover Castle in the background) and then enters the Port of Dover (with a "Dover Ferry Terminal" sign, Dover's Athol Terrace and the White Cliffs of Dover in the background) to catch a ferry to France, were all shot on location.^[14]
• The exterior of Sauvage's French château is actually the castle atop St Michael's Mount in Cornwall.^[12]
• The scenes in Brompton Cemetery were filmed there.^[12]

Reception[]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 33% based on 122 reviews with an average rating of 4.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A tame spy spoof that elicits infrequent chuckles."^[15] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 51 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[16]

Soundtrack[]

All tracks were written by Edward Shearmur and performed by London Metropolitan Orchestra unless otherwise noted.

1. "A Man for All Seasons" (Hans Zimmer, Robbie Williams) – Robbie Williams
2. "Theme from Johnny English" (Howard Goodall)
3. "Russian Affairs"
4. "A Man of Sophistication"
5. "Kismet" (Written by Gay-Yee Westerhoff) – Bond
6. "Truck Chase"
7. "The Only Ones" – Moloko
8. "Parachute Drop"
9. "Pascal's Evil Plan"
10. "Theme from Johnny English (Salsa Version)" (Howard Goodall) – Bond
11. "Off the Case"
12. "Cafe Conversation"
13. "Into Pascal's Lair"
14. "Zadok the Priest" – Handel
15. "Does Your Mother Know" – ABBA
16. "For England"
17. "Riviera Highway"
18. "Agent No. 1"

Home media[]

Johnny English was released on VHS on 11 August 2003 and on DVD on 11 January 2004,^[17] The film was released on Blu-ray on 28 February 2012,^[18] along with its sequel Johnny English Reborn. The film was released on Netflix in February 2016.^[19]

Sequels[]

A sequel, titled Johnny English Reborn, was released in October 2011. In September 2010, filming for the sequel began, seven years after the release of the original, and concluded in March 2011. The film follows Johnny English, now training in Asia after being disgraced in an earlier mission, as he attempts to foil a plot to assassinate the Chinese Premier, while a mole is found in "MI7" and English has to deal with being framed.

In May 2017, it was announced that pre-production had begun on a third film titled, Johnny English Strikes Again, which was released on 5 October 2018.

See also[]

• Outline of James Bond
• List of British films of 2003
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, a 1997 comedy film similarly lampooning the spy genre

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Johnny English

• Johnny English at IMDb
• Johnny English at AllMovie