Psycho's Movie Reviews #403: Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)

Johnny English Strikes Again is a 2018 action spy comedy film directed by David Kerr. It is the sequel to Johnny English Reborn (2011) and is the third instalment of the Johnny English series. The film stars Rowan Atkinson in the title role, alongside Ben Miller, Olga Kurylenko, Jake Lacy and Emma Thompson. The film follows the titular MI7 agent who is called into action, when all undercover operatives are exposed in a cyber attack.

The film was released in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 5 October 2018 and in the United States on 26 October 2018, by Universal Pictures. The film received generally negative reviews from critics but was a box office success, grossing $159 million worldwide with its $25 million budget.

Plot

Seven years after the events of Reborn, a cyber attack exposes MI7’s field agents, forcing the agency to reinstate older inactive agents, including Johnny English. Now a geography teacher, he secretly trains his students in espionage.

Accidentally incapacitating the other retired agents, English is the sole agent left to accept the mission. He insists on his old sidekick and MI7 clerk, Jeremy Bough. Collecting their equipment, including explosive jelly babies and a tracker disguised as a Sherbet Fountain, English and Bough leave behind their mobile and drive an old Aston Martin to France to investigate.

They arrive at the Hotel Magnifique in Antibes, where the cyber attack originated. Undercover as waiters, they steal a mobile with a photo of the next target, the Dot Calm yacht, and English accidentally sets fire to the restaurant. Sneaking onto the yacht, he and Bough are caught by Russian operative Ophelia Bhuletova, but escape after seeing many computer servers.

Pursuing Bhuletova's electric BMW through the countryside, English and Bough run out of fuel. She finds them, arranging to meet at the Hotel de Paris in Cagnes-sur-Mer. While English meets her at the hotel bar, Bough discovers she is a spy, but English rejects his suspicions. Attempting to kill him, she fails after he takes a pill making him hyperactive.

Further cyber attacks force Theresa May to solidify an agreement with Silicon Valley billionaire Jason Volta, to be revealed during a forthcoming G12 meeting.

Learning Volta owns the Dot Calm, and suspecting he is behind the cyber attack, English and Bough return home. Seeking proof, they must infiltrate Volta's mansion. In preparation, English is given a virtual reality exploration of the building. However, he unintentionally leaves the simulation room, assaulting various people whilst in the virtual environment (including battering the manager of a local café with two baguettes, and commandeering an open-top bus by pushing the tour guide off the top deck).

Arriving at the mansion, English discovers Bhuletova is also a spy. He records evidence of Volta's plans with her iPhone, but is exposed when hitting a button, playing a song instead. English escapes, hijacking a driving instructor's car, returning to MI7 after being chased by Volta. However, he mixes up iPhones with the driving student, so fails to convince MI7 and the Prime Minister of Volta's schemes. Hearing of both the restaurant and virtual reality incidents, she fires English and proceeds with the G12 meeting in Scotland. Bough convinces him to stop Volta anyway, enlisting his wife Lydia's aid, a Navy captain of submarine HMS Vengeance, to arrive at Garroch Castle via Loch Nevis.

Bhuletova attempts to kill Volta but, knowing she is a spy, he has immunized himself to her poison ring and removed her gun's firing pin. Scaling the castle using a powered bodysuit, English intervenes before Volta can kill her, who escapes. Volta plans to extort the G12 leaders by threatening to shut down the internet. English calls MI7, but forgets Lydia's warning about using a mobile near the submarine.

An MI7 secretary unintentionally places two telephones next to each other: one on a call from English, the other from Lydia, calling to confirm a launch code English inadvertently keyed in. Mistakenly given the order to attack by English, Lydia launches a ballistic missile. The missile diverts to a Sherbet Fountain beacon left by English on the Dot Calm, destroying the yacht and Volta's server. English, in a suit of armour, Bough and Bhuletova chase Volta to his helicopter as he prepares to reroute the attack to a server in Nevada.

Bhuletova gives English a tablet to disable Volta's Aerospatiale Gazelle helicopter. When Volta mocks English's inability to use digital technology, he uses the tablet to knock Volta out, then smashes his phone with a sword to stop the attack. The Prime Minister praises and forgives English for his attitude, who accidentally disrobes before the press and G12 leaders while removing the armour.

English returns to his school as a guest speaker, welcomed by his students. However, to his horror, he sees the headmaster about to eat one of the explosive Jelly babies.

Production

In May 2017, it was announced that Rowan Atkinson would be returning to take the role of Johnny English in the sequel to the film Johnny English Reborn (2011). On 3 August 2017, Working Title Films announced that they had begun production and filming with the director David Kerr. The cinematographer is Florian Hoffmeister. This is the second spy film starring both Rowan Atkinson and Edward Fox, who appears in a minor role as the retired Agent Nine (Atkinson and Fox had both appeared earlier in the 1983 non-Eon James Bond film Never Say Never Again).

The production designer is Simon Bowles, who won an award for his designs for this movie at the 2019 British Film Designers Guild Awards, shared with set decorator Liz Griffiths and supervising art director Ben Collins. Parts were also filmed in Welham Green, Hertfordshire; and in Gloucestershire. Filming continued in France from 26 September, at the Saint Aygulf beach in Var.

On 4 April 2018, the title was revealed to be Johnny English Strikes Again, with a teaser trailer released the day after.

Release/Reception/Box Office

Johnny English Strikes Again was scheduled to be released in both the United Kingdom and United States on 12 October 2018 by Universal Pictures; the date for the United States was later moved up to 20 September 2018, before being pushed back to 26 October 2018. It was released on 5 October 2018 by Cinemax Angola.

The film was set to be released digitally on 4 February 2019, and on DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K UltraHD format on February 18, alongside a box set of all three movies in the franchise. In Australia, the film's digital release was moved up to 19 December 2018 while the Blu-Ray and DVD release in the United States and Canada was January 22, 2019.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 37% based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Johnny English Strikes Again might get a few giggles out of viewers pining for buffoonish pratfalls, but for the most part, this sequel simply strikes out." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 39 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally unfavourable reviews".

Johnny English Strikes Again has grossed $4.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $154.5 million elsewhere (including $23.2 million in the United Kingdom), for a total worldwide gross of $159 million.

In the United States and Canada, Johnny English Strikes Again was released alongside Hunter Killer and Indivisible as well as the wide expansion of Mid90s, and was projected to gross around $2 million from 544 theaters in its opening weekend. It ended up debuting to $1.6 million, finishing 12th at the box office. Deadline Hollywood noted the film's American release was essentially a formality, as it was not built for the audience in the United States, and thus the low opening wasn't seen as a disappointment to the studio.

Outside North America, the film debuted to $5.5 million in the United Kingdom and grossed $14.1 million overall in its second week for a to date total gross of $66.5 million. In its third weekend of international release, the film added another $9.8 million from 57 countries, including a $2.4 million opening in Germany, and a running cume of $96 million.

Budget $25 million

Box office $159 million

My Review

{This is my favourite one of the trilogy}

I've always enjoyed the Johnny English movies, so I was absolutely delighted with the third entry in the series: Johnny English Strikes Again. Especially as I got the opportunity to watch it in the cinema with my cousin. With the brilliantly idiotic hilarity of The Pink Panther, and the fun factor of all the old Bond movies, I was laughing and smiling right the way through here, and even though there's barely anything in terms of a story to follow, it proves a thoroughly entertaining watch from beginning to end.

I was really surprised by just how much I laughed in this movie, because while I've had good fun with the previous two films, I can't say that I've ever found one quite so funny as this, but that really is a positive for a film that's unashamedly silly and light-hearted throughout.

Taking all of the most generic tropes of spy movies, including all the clichés of old Bond and new Mission: Impossible movies, this film tells you that it's not trying to create any sort of dramatic or exciting story right from the outset, and while that may prove a negative for lesser movies, it really doesn't here.

There are so many jokes throughout the film, and although not every single one sticks the landing, the sheer quantity of gags coupled with the presence of a handful of properly funny ones makes the film a hugely entertaining watch, as Rowan Atkinson ups the funny factor another level with a delightfully silly performance.

Much like the old Pink Panther movies, Johnny English Strikes Again is pretty much a series of comedic setups strung loosely together by a very basic spy plot. If you're looking for deep espionage thrills, then this definitely isn't the film to watch, but there's so much humour to enjoy throughout that the quality of the story really isn't as important, as I found myself too busy laughing to really bother about anything else.

And what's more is that, like Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther movies, Rowan Atkinson's fantastically silly performance works perfectly once again, as we see him get into all sorts of ridiculous situations that, while entirely predictable and idiotic, are really brought to life by his onscreen brilliance, to the point that you never really get tired of watching him do the same thing over and over again.

I can tell that this film won't be for everyone, but I had a whole lot of fun with its unrelentingly silly and light-hearted atmosphere throughout. The first two acts in particular stand out with their rapid-fire jokes per minute ratio, and while the final act gets a little too interested in the story for its own good - taking away from the pure idiocy of the comedy - I was laughing a huge amount from beginning to end. 9.8/10!!!

{There were so many hilarious scenes in this film, but these 2 were the best}

{THE VR SCENE IS THE BEST SCENE THOUGH!!!!}

https://youtu.be/tSPxf6bRfHo?list=TLPQMDYwNDIwMjLOLeDfWAgdkA