Johnny English Reborn (Blu-ray) (2011)

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General		Extras
Category	Action Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Deleted Scenes Outtakes Featurette-Making Of Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Multiple Audio Commentary More…-Pocket Blu, BD-Live
Rating
Year Of Production	2011
Running Time	101:21
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Oliver Parker
Studio Distributor	Working Title Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Rowan Atkinson Tim McInnerney Dominic West Togo Igawa Eleanor Wyld Mandi Sidhu Margaret Clunie Rosamund Pike Gillian Anderson
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	?	Music	Ilan Eshkeri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Italian dts 5.1 German dts 5.1 Catalan dts 5.1 Spanish dts 5.1 Hindi dts 5.1 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Italian German Spanish Cantonese Danish Dutch Finnish Greek Icelandic Korean Norwegian Portuguese Swedish Catalan Mandarin	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Rowan Atkinson is a very funny man. Of all the characters he has played in sketches, television shows and movies, three stand out, Blackadder, Mr Bean and Johnny English. Blackadder and Mr Bean had given him iconic status in comedy long before the Johnny English character was created, firstly in a set of advertisements for Barclaycard (although called Latham it was the same basic character) and then in the first film, Johnny English in 2003. The first film was quite successful and I have watched it a few times since its release, once recently with my kids. They loved it, so when this new film Johnny English Reborn was released we went along to the cinema and all enjoyed it. One of the great things about this film is that it can be enjoyed by the whole family, unlike many modern 'comedies which rely on bad taste rather than wit.

     The setup for this film is that Johnny English has been sacked for an incident in Mozambique when he was on protection duty. Needless to say it didn't go well, but as details are revealed over the course of the film I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen this film. Anyway, he has gone to Tibet and joined a Buddhist monastery, learning skills such as fire walking and martial arts. Meanwhile, MI7 have been tipped off that there is a mole in their midst by a former CIA agent who will only talk to Johnny English about it. So, MI7 being him in from the cold but the service is a very different place than the one he left, sponsored by Toshiba and full of new rules about sexism and safety. He meets the new director of MI7, Pamela Thornton (Gillian Anderson) and the behavioural psychologist on staff, Kate Sumner (Rosamund Pike) before heading off to Hong Kong with his new partner, Agent Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya), who is only 20. There is also a nice cameo by Tim McInnerney as Patch Quartermain the weapons specialist and gadget provider.

     There is a great mixture of believable thriller and comedy to this film, which really makes it work. It is more thriller probably than the first film despite being predominantly a comedy. There are some great comedy sequences here, some such as the cable car and ski chase sequences taken straight from James Bond and then made funnier. There is also a marvellous scene involving a helicopter, another with a wheelchair chase and then Johnny English wrestling himself.

     The film did quite well globally taking over $160m but did very little at all in the US. The Blu-ray itself takes a long time to load as it tries to download trailers form the internet amongst other things.

     This film is an hour and a half of fun and entertainment for the whole family.

Video

     The video quality is generally excellent but suffers from significant aliasing and shimmer, which is unusual for Blu-ray. The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 1080p encoded using AVC.

     The picture was very clear and sharp throughout. The shadow detail was excellent. The colour was also excellent, bright and vivid throughout.

     The only problem with this transfer is pretty regular aliasing/shimmer style artefacts with the usual suspects such as grills, checked jackets etc., causing issues. It is disappointing to see this on a Blu-ray.

     There are subtitles available in English and loads of other languages. They are clear and easy to read.

    There are no obvious layer changes during playback.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good. This disc contains an English soundtrack in DTS HD-MA 5.1 along with DTS 5.1 soundtracks in Catalan, Italian, German, Castilian Spanish & Hindi. There are also Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks for the commentary and Audio Descriptive.

     Dialogue was clear and easy to hear and understand throughout.

     The music by Ilan Eskeri is great, it could easily have been the score for a more serious spy thriller.

     The surround speakers were used a lot for gunfire, the helicopter, voices and more. The subwoofer was also used a lot to support explosions, fight scenes and music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     Good quality selection of extras.

Menu

     The menu included sounds and pictures from the film and was the standard Universal design with the menu on the left. It was preceded by trailers.

Deleted / Extended Scenes with Director Intro (39:29)

     Quite a good and interesting set of deleted scenes, some quite amusing. Unfortunately, the director intros are boring and go on for too long between each scene. You can't even skip them because each and intro and scene is one chapter.

Gag Reel (2:29)

     A surprisingly amusing gag reel.

The English Files : The Making of Johnny English Reborn (25:04)

     A good quality making of which covers the need to update the style because of the spy thrillers in the intervening years after the first film, gadgets, locations, production design, stunts and more.

Working with Rowan (3:55)

     Featurette where the cast and crew talk about Rowan Atkinson and his working style.

Gadgets (3:16)

     A light featurette about the gadgets in the film and how they were put together.

English in Hong Kong (5:03)

     Behind the Scenes featurette from the scenes done in Hong Kong.

Wheelchair Chase (5:26)

     Interesting featurette about how they constructed the fast wheelchair, testing it in pre-production and then shooting the scene.

Commentary - Director Oliver Parker & Screenwriter Hamish McColl

     A pretty good quality commentary which covers story, locations, trivia, casting and the balancing on comedy and thriller elements. The commentators are relaxed and fun which makes this a worthwhile track to listen to.

Pocket-Blu

     A worthwhile extra of 'second-screeners'. If you download the app from your app store and your device is connected to the same home wireless network as your Blu-ray player, you can use your iPhone/iPad as a remote and also access a range of content even if not on your home network including many of the extras from the disc plus another spy app. The remote works well.

BD-Live

     Access to BD-Live is available for those with network connectivity but there didn't seem to be any specific content for this film.

    The Blu-ray version of this film is the same in Region A.

     A fun and entertaining spy spoof for the whole family The video quality is generally excellent but suffers from one flaw. The audio quality is very good.

     The extras are plentiful and worthwhile.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall