Johnny English Reborn- Movie Review

Directed by Oliver Parker
Screenplay by William Davies, story by Hamish McColl.
Running Time: 101 minutes (1h, 41 mins.)
Rated PG (for mild action violence, rude humor, some language and brief sensuality).
Distributor: Universal Pictures

For many who don't know, Johnny English Reborn is a sequel to Johnny English, the spy parody which was released eight years ago. But I guess the first film wasn't the most memorable of Rowan Atkinson's wacky characters, which explains why I, like everyone, was surprised that a sequel was getting developed after all those years. This isn't Hollywood's doing, by the way.

Atkinson returns as Johnny, who disappeared from MI7 long ago and is living in a remote area in China. But when the agency learns of an assasination attempt on the Chinese premier, English is the only agent in contact and he must swing back into action to stop it. That's pretty much the whole premise. With that premise comes much of Atkinson's signature slapstick humor. This however features nutshots, English falling down constantly and a urinal joke. Now from that whole description, you probably think I hated this film as much as I hated Spy Kids: All the Time in the World. No, I didn't. 

As Spy Kids 4 was a unnecessary sequel filled with unoriginality and a bunch of jokes involving poop, flatulance and barf, Johnny English 2 has some originality left in it- even if it is a spoof. It still suffers some problems. Mainly its script. While it has some funny moments, it never really goes anywhere and has a lot of cliched moments. Then again, it is a spoof, so you never really know if it making fun of those cliches or it's just in there. There's also a scene where English is attacking the elderly mother of MI7 Head Pamela Thornton (Gillian Anderson, with a British accent and being unamusing). That was obviously ripped from Austin Powers.

While Atkinson does good as usual, the rest of the cast sometimes fail to keep up. I already mentioned Anderson, but there's also Dominic West and Rosamund Pike, both of them great actors. West tries too hard to be funny. As for Pike, although she has some fine moments, it seems like this role is just a way for her to relive her Bond girl days. I did like Daniel Kaluuya, who played English's new partner. His scenes with Atkinson provide some laughs. Oliver Parker is the director of this, though it would have been more nicer if they brought Peter Howitt, the director of the first film, back. I guess he didn't want to do this one.

Let me just end this review by saying that while I did laugh, I didn't laugh enough. Despite it being another one of those spy movie spoofs, it's hard not to point the cliches involved in this. Some of the performances aren't really in touch with the film and the script gets tiring. I like how it's slightly darker than its the first, but overall I didn't get a whole lot much from this film. I give it ** (2 stars).