Film Review: Johnny English Reborn

Johnny English Reborn (2011)
starring Rowan Atkinson, Rosamund Pike, Gillian Anderson, and Dominic West

Watch the trailer for Johnny English Reborn

(source: trailers)

[Warning! ... for those who haven't seen this movie and don't want to be spoiled...]

Brief synopis (via IMDB):
Rowan Atkinson returns to the role of the accidental secret agent who doesn't know fear or danger in the comedy spy-thriller Johnny English Reborn.

I saw this movie with my mother and we thought it was hilarious. We loved and enjoyed watching this film. It had plenty of laughs and action to keep you watching and entertained from beginning to end.

Rowan Atkinson is back and is as clumsy (and hilarious) as ever as the bumbling MI-7 agent Johnny English in this fun and hilarious sequel to the 2003 Johnny English film. I thought this film was so much better and was a lot more funnier than the first one. There were a lot of funny and action scenes to keep you watching as there were combinations of James Bond and Bourne films parodies in this film mix with plenty of action and comedy. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I really enjoyed watching Rowan Atkinson more in this film than the first one. There were several funny scenes that made us laughed a lot like when Johnny was in the shrinking/going up chair scene (with funny lines: "He's the Prime Minister...yeah, you wish." and "give me 24 hours." ....it made us laugh so hard, lol), the Tibet/Monk scenes (English was hilarious whenever he loses focus or concentration to the task he was doing, haha!), the scene where he chewed the gum and his voice changed, lol. Whenever he hears "Mozambique," he makes a funny face and one of his eyes twitches...lol. The scenes whenever he tries to catch the "vacuum cleaner killer" (aka the old Chinese lady, whose an assassin/spy...to which he ends up catching the wrong person as she was pretty clever and too fast and too confusing for him to catch, haha!) was so hilarious. Also, I enjoyed the hilarious Bourne-sque action/fight scenes at the beginning of English with the Chinese guy who stole one of the vortex keys...their fight and chase scenes in Hongkong, China were hilarious. The whole chase scene where the guy climbs down the fences and scaffolding, while English takes the elevator. Then, the guy jumps into a little boat, while English takes a yacht. Also, before the chase scene, when English thought he got him, but he escaped and jumped right through him without him even noticing it, hahaha! OMG, that was hilarious!!! The plane scene where agent Tucker was telling him that the guy had a name tag that said "Susan," but English said, "you must not be linguistic because that name is pronounced 'Shu-san'" or something close to it, lol. There were more funny scenes, but that would be telling you the whole movie, wouldn't it? And I've pretty much spoiled you with writing some hilarious scenes here, lol.

As for the supporting cast, Rosamund Pike as Kate Sumner, a behavioral Psychologist and love interest to Johnny English was pretty good in her supporting role and she was a nice addition to the whole new cast of JER. It was very good to hear her British accent again (I was getting used to hearing her American accent in her other films that I've seen, which were just released recently/this year such as The Big Year, Burning Palms, and Barney's Version). Gillian Anderson (Pegasus, I think that was her name if I remember right, as that's what they call her, lol) was good here too as the new MI-7 boss of English. Daniel Kaluuya as agent Tucker was funny in some scenes with English especially the helicopter scene.

Overall, I thought Johnny English Reborn was pretty good and hilarious! Rowan Atkinson was really funny on this one and actually made me laugh. The opening title sequence was quite Bond-esque and impressive at the same time. The score was very good too, which interestingly fits the opening sequence. The pacing was very good in this film as we hardly noticed the time. The visual gags in the film was also quite impressive. The fight and chase scenes were awesome and humorous at the same time. Other standout sequences include English on a gadget powered wheelchair racing down the streets of London, along with the majority of action scenes. The Rolls-Royce car with a voice recognition and the shrinking chair gag in MI-7, also added more fun and humor to this film. I recommend you check out and see this movie especially if you love Rowan Atkinson/Mr. Bean as well as if you get the British humor (which I'm finding more and more hilarious these days than the recent American humor/comedy films that were mostly unfunny...this movie and most especially the original Death at a Funeral film made me LOL a lot). I must say this was one of the few funniest films I've seen (thus far) in theaters this year. I guess because I've mostly seen mostly suspense/thriller/comic book films, so this one was a nice change. Not too mention, I thought this movie was a lot  more funny than some high school/teen comedies (American Pie), adult comedies (ie. The Hangover, etc.), and rom-coms, etc.        

My Johnny English Reborn Film Rating:  ! (9.5/10; A)