Review of Johnny English (2003) by Natasha M — 30 Jul 2011

The movie opens with Johnny English, an inept worker at British Intelligence, having a fantasy about himself as "Agent One." In this fantasy, he successfully sneaks into a building by distracting the guard dogs with squeaky-toys, knocks out the human guards with their own guns, and then successfully seduces a black-haired beauty who tries to stop his mission by pointing a gun at him.

Just as he is about to kiss her, his fantasy is abruptly interrupted when the real Agent One walks in and asks for his papers. Johnny gives them to him, promising that he has "checked personally that the submarine hatch will open." Later, the audience hears that Agent One has died because his submarine hatch "failed to open.".

An explosion at the funeral of Agent One, Britain's top agent, wipes out every secret agent in the country - except English, who was overlooking the cars and didn't notice a car speed away from the Coffin. Before his death, Agent One was investigating a plot to steal the Crown Jewels, so English takes over as a last resort. Together with his (far more capable) assistant Angus Bough (Ben Miller), he manages to discover the person behind the plot, the French prison entrepreneur Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich), whose family once had a claim to the British throne.

Sauvage is a descendant of William the Conqueror, and believes that the crown should have gone to him instead of the Queen, as 200 yrs ago his family were passed by. He hatched an evil plan to steal the Crown Jewels, have an impostor replace the Archbishop of Canterbury (Oliver Ford Davies), and have himself proclaimed as King.

Meanwhile, English is strangely attracted to a mysterious woman, Lorna Campbell (Natalie Imbruglia), whom he meets at a big social event whilst guarding the centrepiece to the whole event - the Crown Jewels. He inevitably fails, and the Jewels are stolen. He knocks out a waiter when the lights go out, pretends to fight a criminal in another room, and later reports a fictitious description of the assailant to the authorities, saying he must have escaped while the Queen was being sedated.

Later, Bough and English follow a tunnel and find the Jewels, but fail to stop the thieves after English's gun breaks. English chases their car, but follows the wrong car to a funeral. He was convinced the burial party was an act, so he places the mourners and Priest under arrest, then makes a fool of himself, even dancing a jig on the coffin. Bough rescues him by pretending that English was an escaped asylum inmate and that he is a Doctor.