If you loved the original Johnny English from 2003 you’ll probably like this one too, although for me it’s slightly inferior. It’s a bit muddled and the original inspiration seems to have somewhat dwindled, however there’s still a lot of the good stuff in one form or another.
I rate it Bang Average for much the same reasons as I rated the original Above Average, while considering that this sequel seems slightly less cohesive — it’s slightly more muddled and lacks the beautiful Natalie Imbruglia of course — something the team probably realised by the time they made the third, hence the casting of Olga Kurylenko for that one.
I’m not a fan of the privileged Chinese-Jew lead character in this movie (Even Kim, played by Greta Lee) — it’s clear she was gifted this role for her family allegiance rather than any significant talent. The next main female, Athena, played by Jodie Turner-Smith, a privileged black tomboy woman, wasn’t any better either. Indeed, most of the cast are pretty weak here too — it’s a typical LGBT lineup for 2025. The lead antagonist warrior, called Ares, played by Jared Leto, is alright, but it’s not enough to make the movie any better than Below Average. The script is messy for the most part, and hard to enjoy early on — the first half hour was especially weak, but it does improve after half an hour. It gets particularly interesting around half way through, when Ares goes rogue from his evil dictator in the human world, because he doesn’t want to kill Eve Kim, the lead female who he was hunting earlier. By 1 hour in, this movie looks set for a Below Average rating — not quite as good as the second movie from 2010, but better than the original from 1982.
This movie also benefits from an aged Gillian Anderson (from the X Files) playing Elisabeth Dillinger, the mother of Julian Dillinger, the main baddie, played by Even Peters — another typical annoying modern casting choice.
There’s some good action here — the main reason I rate it so low is because of the pace, with all the slow annoying soppy Netflix-grade drama, and even the fast action scenes are very slowed down. Add that to the annoying modern casting style and this movie is a clear level down from 2010’s even though it does have some strong special effects.
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