| “ | He knows no fear. He knows no danger. He knows nothing. | „ |
| ~ Tagline. |
Johnny English is the titular main protagonist of the Johnny English film trilogy; Johnny English, Johnny English Reborn and Johnny English Strikes Again. He is a MI7 Intelligence agent, who is a combination-parody of James Bond, Austin Powers, and Mr. Bean.
He was portrayed by Rowan Atkinson, who also portrayed Baron De Witt in the first film, though his scenes were deleted.
Biography[]
Johnny English[]
Johnny English is an inept MI7 agent with dreams of being their most trusted employee. After Agent One dies in a submarine accident (courtesy of English making a mistake on checking the submarine hatch code), the remaining agents are assassinated via a bombing at Agent One’s funeral (again courtesy of English's incompetence at security), leaving English as the lone survivor. English is assigned to follow a plot to steal the Crown Jewels, which are on display at the Tower of London.
At the display, English is head of security, and meets the mysterious Lorna Campbell. The power is cut, and the jewels are stolen. During the chaos, English knocks out Col. Sir Anthony Chevenix, Head of Royal Security and pretends to fight the assailant (in reality fighting himself).
He later makes up a false description of the assailant to Pegasus. English and his assistant Bough find the jewels, which were removed via a hole dug beneath their display case. The two follow a tunnel, confronting the two thieves Dieter Klein and Klaus Vendetta. The two escape in a hearse, and English tries to pursue them, but he mistakes them for another hearse, gatecrashing a funeral until Bough comes to his aid by pretending he is from the Lunatic Response Unit and that English is a patient named Gunther who wasn't supposed to be released until 2028 but was accidentally released due to "a most monumental cock-up".
English connects the thieves to Pascal Sauvage, a French prison entrepreneur who helped restore the Crown Jewels. Pegasus, head of MI7, finds the claims of his involvement absurd and warns English not to involve Sauvage. In the car park, English and Bough are attacked by Vendetta, but are unharmed beyond Bough getting a nose bleed (courtesy of English mistaking him for Vendetta and covering up for himself by saying that there could have been other thieves and adamantly insisting that Bough drop the issue and move on).
English again encounters Lorna Campbell in a sushi restaurant as he recognized her motorcycle. During their meeting English is suspicious of her since he has seen her at two of their crime scenes and her records cannot be found on any government computer. English and Bough decide to break into Sauvage’s headquarters via parachutes, but English lands on the other twin tower containing the City Hospital by mistake taking hospital employees hostage until he sees the "SAUVAGE" sign from the building with Bough inside.
He then covers for himself by telling the employees that the holdup was just a test of their emergency response systems while telling Bough that he merely did a precautionary sweep of the immediate environment. Going to the correct building, the two learn Sauvage, who is a descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie, plans on making himself king, using an impostor to impersonate the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lorna arrives, revealed to be an Interpol agent tracking Sauvage. With evidence of Sauvage’s involvement, English crashes a reception hosted by Sauvage but he is suspended from work by Pegasus for breaking into Sauvage's office, assaulting his staff and insulting the foreign secretary.
With English now aware of their plans, Sauvage scraps the fake Archbishop and instead sends his minions to force Queen Elizabeth II to abdicate by threatening her corgis, causing the entire line of succession to be swept clean for Sauvage to become king. Lorna, now in charge of the assignment thanks to Pegasus, visits the depressed English and convinces him to travel with her to Sauvage’s French Château to investigate.
Eavesdropping on Sauvage’s meeting with various renowned criminals, English and Lorna learn Sauvage plans to turn the United Kingdom into the world’s biggest prison when he becomes king. English and Lorna are exposed when the former accidentally activates a microphone, and they are taken prisoner. English tries to steal the DVD of Sauvage’s plan, but accidentally drops it onto a tray of identical discs and takes the wrong one without looking. Bough rescues the two and they race to stop Sauvage’s coronation.
English crashes the coronation and discovers the Archbishop is the genuine article. Undeterred, English orders Bough to play the DVD, only to find it is camera footage of himself dancing in his bathroom in his underclothes to “Does Your Mother Know” by ABBA, Sauvage having bugged English’s flat beforehand, much to Pegasus' disgust. English sneaks away but swings in on a wire to steal St. Edward’s Crown from Sauvage. Sauvage angrily shoots at English with a pistol, causing him to drop the crown. Moments before Sauvage is crowned king, English drops from the wire after being shot, lands on the throne, and is crowned instead. In his singular act as king, English has Sauvage arrested and restores the Queen to the throne, requesting a knighthood as a reward.
In the final scene, English and Lorna drive to southern France for a romantic holiday, only for English to accidentally launch Lorna out the car by pressing the button that activates ejector seat. Lorna lands in a hotel swimming pool, where Bough happens to be vacationing as well as a man identical to the assailant that English described to Pegasus earlier in the film.
Johnny English Reborn[]
Johnny English was later exiled to Tibet, training to achieve balance for his reincarnation. When Johnny was done training, he was brought back to London for an important mission. In London, English was briefed and given the mission by Pegasus, and meets Tucker, his new partner. Before being to sent to Hong Kong, English received numerous gadgets, including a voice activated Rolls Royce. English and Tucker were sent to Hong Kong to prevent a plot to assassinate the Chinese Premier. In a hotel, English speaks with a man who explains that the plot the assassinate the Premier is being orchestrated by an organization known as Vortex, and that to stop them, he should retrieve "keys" which give access to their ultimate trump card. Before he could explain more, a cleaner lady assassinates the man, and another assassin subsequently grabs the key and English chases him. English eventually fights the Chinese assassin and his backup, but English neutralizes them and retrieves the key. English eventually makes it back to Pegasus' house, but unfortunately, loses the key, due to one of the Chinese hitmen stealing it, so English stays put.
English looks around her house, and is attacked by the cleaner lady. The assassin manages to escape after English mistakes Pegasus' mother for her. English goes in the kitchen to apologize to Pegasus' mother, but it turns out to be the actual assassin, who attacks English and runs away. English pursues her, but he ends up attacking Pegasus' real mother due to mistaking her for the maid, and she hits English in retaliation. Thanks to Kate Sumner, MI7's behavioural psychologist, helping Johnny access his suppressed memories of the Mozambique mission using hypnosis, he's able to identify the Russian spy Artem Karlenko as another Vortex member, who is masquerading as millionaire Sergei Pudovkin. English and Tucker then went to his golf club to meet Karlenko for golfing. Johnny tried to ask Karlenko what he knew, but the killer cleaner shoots him before he can say everything.
Johnny, Tucker and Karlenko escape in Karlenko's helicopter and make it to a hospital, and though Karlenko dies of his wound, he reveals the other member of Vortex is a mole in MI7. English then meets with Simon Ambrose to find out who it is, and he tells him he suspects Quartermain. Tucker then confronts Ambrose and accuses him of being the traitor, but Johnny naively dismisses his accusations and lets Simon go with Karlenko's key. Johnny then goes to the church to confront Quartermain, but it soon becomes apparent that Ambrose has framed him as the final vortex member. MI7 agents then ambush Johnny and chase him. Johnny was injured by one of the MI7's agent with a Walther PPK silencer, but he manages to escape in a stolen wheelchair in a chaotic pursuit through London.
Johnny eventually finds refuge and lays low in Kate Sumner's flat, who he manages to convince of his innocence. However, Simon subsequently picks Kate up to go to Switzerland where his Outpost is. Johnny was still staying at Kate's apartment, but the Killer Cleaner arrives. Thankfully, English escapes down a rubbish chute. English then goes to apologize to Tucker and persuades him to join in infiltrating Le Bastion, a fortress in the Swiss Alps where the talks are to be held, and they leave. In Switzerland, English and Tucker were at first successful in infiltrating the fortress, but English accidentally activates a distress beacon, alerting the guards to their presence. English then commands Tucker to knock him out and put him inside a body bag so they will be taken into the fortress. Inside, English manages to escape the body bag and warns Pegasus of the threat, but accidentally consumes a drink spiked with Timoxeline Barbebutenol, and subdues Pegasus on Ambrose's command.
Assigning English as the Prime Minister's bodyguard in place of Pegasus, Ambrose orders him to assassinate the Chinese Premier using a pistol disguised as lipstick, initially designed for Pegasus; English tries to resist the drug. Tucker interrupts Ambrose's communication feed with music before Ambrose resets it, exposing himself as the traitor. English resists again and shoots Ambrose, who escapes while the drug enters its lethal stage and English loses consciousness.
Thankfully, Sumner arrives and revives English with a passionate kiss, after which he goes after Simon. He pursues him down the mountainside and eventually engages in a fistfight with him in a cable car. Johnny manages to eventually overpower him, but falls out of the cable car, after which Simon shoots at him. English tries to use an umbrella missile launcher as a bulletproof shield, mistaking it as such, and closes it in frustration when it doesn't work, which launches a missile at the cable car and kills Simon by blowing it up. Back in London, English was rewarded for his heroics by having his knighthood reinstated, but the Chinese lady attacks English again in the disguise of the Queen. English finds and apprehends her, but he only finds out it's the real Queen Elizabeth when he finds out the Royal guards captured the real Chinese assassin.
Strikes Again[]
TBA
Personality[]
Though English sees himself as an accomplished agent, he proves to be incompetent, clumsy, dim-witted, cold-hearted (usually out of incompetence) and plain silly. Yet he does not seem to regret or think about what he has done wrong. In 2006, he was head of security at President Chambal's Inauguration Day. He was then distracted by a seductive woman who was paid by Vortex to distract him while President Chambal was killed. This resulted in him being stripped of his knighthood and his exile to Tibet for five years.
