Johnny English

This article is about the 2003 British film. For people named John English, see John English (disambiguation).

Johnny English
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Howitt
Produced by	Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Mark Huffam
Written by	Neal Purvis Robert Wade William Davies
Starring	Rowan Atkinson Ben Miller John Malkovich Natalie Imbruglia
Music by	Edward Shearmur
Cinematography	Remi Adefarasin
Editing by	Robin Sales
Studio	StudioCanal Working Title Films
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	11 April 2003 (2003-04-11)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United Kingdom France United States
Language	English French
Budget	$35-40 million
Box office	$160,583,018

Johnny English is a 2003 British action comedy film parodying the James Bond secret agent genre. The film stars Rowan Atkinson, John Malkovich and Ben Miller. Atkinson had previously appeared in the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again. The screenplay was written by Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with William Davies, and the film was directed by Peter Howitt. The film grossed a total of $160 million worldwide.

Plot

The film opens with a fantasy sequence in which Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson), an inept British Intelligence agent, is "Agent One". He sneaks into a building, distracts two guard dogs with toys, knocks out two guards and seduces a woman who threatens him. He is awoken from his fantasy, just as he is about to kiss the woman, by his sidekick, Angus Bough (Ben Miller). After being assured that English has checked the submarine hatch codes personally, the real Agent One (Greg Wise) leaves on a mission. The audience then learn that Agent One died in action when his submarine hatch "failed to open". A bomb then wipes out Britain's remaining agents, all of whom were attending the funeral of Agent One, leaving only English. Nobody notices the hearse, which sped from the scene minutes earlier.

Before his death, Agent One was investigating a plot to steal the Crown Jewels. Together with Bough, English takes over the case. While investigating, English becomes attracted to a mysterious woman, Lorna Campbell (Imbruglia), whom he meets at the unveiling of the newly restored Crown Jewels, where English is in charge of the security. The power to the room is cut, and English accidentally knocks out the chief of security, before pretending to fight a criminal in another room in an attempt to cover up this fact. Later, Bough and English follow a tunnel and find the Jewels, but fail to stop the thieves after English accidentally ejects the magazine from his pistol. English chases their car, a hearse, but accidentally ends up trailing the wrong hearse after being stopped by a red light. Convinced the burial party he discovers is an act, he arrests the mourners and the priest before realizing his mistake. Bough rescues him by pretending that English is an escaped asylum inmate.

The pair then uncovers the mastermind of the theft, French prison entrepreneur and descendant of William the Conqueror, Pascal Sauvage (Malkovich). English reports his suspicions to the head of MI7, Pegasus (Pigott-Smith), who dismisses his concerns as absurd. In the car park, one of Sauvage's henchmen attacks English and Bough, and escapes when English mistakenly attacks Bough. English and Bough infiltrate Sauvage's headquarters via parachute, but English lands on the wrong building, abseiling the identical London Hospital. He holds several staff and patients at gunpoint, before realizing his mistake.

English activates a DVD player, exposing Sauvage's plan to instate himself as King, using an impostor to impersonate the Archbishop of Canterbury (Oliver Ford Davies). After English accidentally injects himself with muscle relaxant, he and Bough are rescued from two of Sauvage's men by Lorna. She turns out to be an Interpol agent, also on Sauvage's tail (every major convict released from one of Sauvage's prisons in the last six months has been employed by one of his companies). Along with Bough, they gatecrash a party held by Sauvage. The muscle relaxant not yet worn off, English accidentally insults the Foreign Secretary (Jenny Galloway). One of the henchmen reports English to Sauvage, a friend of English's unwitting boss, who dismisses Bough and English. Sauvage decides that English has found out too much about his original plan, and sends his henchmen to force the Queen to sign a letter of abdication by putting a gun to her pet dog. The signature of abdication also nulls the Royal Family's and the line to the throne's right to the Crown; hereby, as planned, making Sauvage the automatic heir to be King. He acts surprised when informed by the Prime Minister that the position of monarch now belongs to him.

Lorna visits English at his flat, as his mission was reassigned to her, and persuades English to join her. They travel to France, infiltrate Sauvage's chateau, and overhear his proposal to turn the United Kingdom into a giant prison. However, English accidentally triggers a microphone, alerting Sauvage to their presence. In an attempt to steal an incriminating DVD, English accidentally drops it onto a tray full of identical discs, and takes what turns out later to be the wrong one. Taken hostage, the two agents are freed by Bough and return to England on the day of the coronation.

At Sauvage's coronation, English sneaks in disguised as the representative of the English bishops. He publicly accuses Sauvage of treason, and unaware that the fake Archbishop is no longer being used, English attempts to pull off the Archbishop's face, believing it to be a mask. Failing this, English pulls down the Archbishop's trousers to look for a tattoo, borne by the imposter, that says "Jesus is coming, look busy". English then radios to Bough to tell him to play the DVD they retrieved. Bough does so, resulting in three-quarters of the world's population watching English, in a shower cap and underpants, dancing and miming along to "Does Your Mother Know" by ABBA. English escapes, but comes back, swinging from a wire above Sauvage and the Archbishop, grabbing the crown before it touches Sauvage's head. Sauvage reveals his true intentions to London by pulling a gun and shooting at English, telling London that it will stand in line and do what he's told no matter what, including letting him turn the country into a prison. In the following struggle, English is inadvertently crowned instead. He places Sauvage under arrest, reveals the plot to the Queen and allows her to return to the throne, in return for a knighthood.

The film ends with English driving Lorna to the top of a mountain where Johnny accidentally presses the eject button while about to kiss her, and Lorna shoots into the sky. There is also a short scene in the credits showing Lorna landing in a swimming pool where Bough is sitting and as the orange haired criminal described earlier by English lowers his newspaper.

Cast

• Rowan Atkinson as MI7 agent, Johnny English
• John Malkovich as Pascal Sauvage
• Ben Miller as MI7 agent, Angus Bough
• Natalie Imbruglia as Interpol Agent Lorna Campbell
• Oliver Ford Davies as the Archbishop of Canterbury
• Tim Pigott-Smith as Pegasus
• Kevin McNally as the Prime Minister
• Douglas McFerran as Klaus Vendetta
• Steve Nicolson as Dieter Klein
• Greg Wise as Agent One
• Tim Berrington as Roger
• Prunella Scales as Queen Elizabeth II
• Tasha de Vasconcelos as Countess Alexandra (Exotic Woman)
• Nina Young as Pegasus' secretary
• Sam Beazley as Elderly man
• Kevin Moore as Doctor
• Jack Raymond as French reception waiter
• Jenny Galloway as the Foreign Secretary
• Chris Tarrant (voice) as Radio announcer
• Trevor McDonald (voice) as Newscaster

Production

The character of Johnny English himself is based on a similar character called Richard Latham who was played by Atkinson in a series of British television advertisements for Barclaycard. The character of Bough (pronounced 'Boff') was retained from the advertisements though another actor, Henry Naylor, played the part in the ads. Some of the gags from the advertisements made it into the film, including English incorrectly identifying a waiter, and inadvertently shooting himself with a tranquiliser 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^{[citation needed]}: 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 is Mentmore Towers.
• 'Sandringham' is Hughenden Manor.
• The exterior and interior of MI7's headquarters which English enters at the start is Freemasons' Hall, London, 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.
• The exterior of Sauvage's French château is actually the castle atop St Michael's Mount in Cornwall.
• A scene was taken in Hong Kong, China.
• The scenes in Brompton Cemetery were filmed there.

Reception

The film received a mixed response from critics. It holds a 33% approval rating on the review site Rotten Tomatoes based on 116 reviews with the consensus "A tame spy spoof that elicits infrequent chuckles." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 51 based on 32 reviews.

Soundtrack

All tracks 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 DVD on January 13, 2004 and on Blu-ray on February 28, 2012 along with its sequel Johnny English Reborn.

Sequel

A sequel, Johnny English Reborn, was released on October 2011. Filming for this began in September 2010, 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.

External links

• Official website
• Johnny English at the Internet Movie Database
• Johnny English at AllRovi
• Johnny English at Box Office Mojo
• Johnny English at Rotten Tomatoes
• Johnny English at Metacritic