Two decades later, the film holds up because it understands the one rule of comedy: heroes are boring, failures are forever. Johnny English didn't save the world because he was strong or smart; he saved it because everyone else was dead and he was too stubborn to quit.

: The character was originally developed for a series of Barclaycard commercials in the 1990s, where Atkinson played a bungling spy named Richard Latham .

Here’s a full review of Johnny English (2003), starring Rowan Atkinson.

The success of spawned a franchise. Johnny English Reborn (2011) and Johnny English Strikes Again (2018) followed, each updating the character for a new decade. However, none captured the raw, low-budget charm of the original. Why? Because the 2003 version sits in a perfect time capsule. It exists just before the smartphone revolution, so English has to rely on clunky maps and payphones. It exists just after the peak of Brosnan-era Bond, making the parody feel fresh.

In the summer of 2003, the cinematic landscape was dominated by swaggering secret agents. Audiences were spoiled by the high-octane realism of Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity and the slick, stylish CGI of Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day . Sandwiched between these titans of the genre came a bumbling, eyebrow-arching, rather incompetent oddball: .

Peter Howitt Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Natalie Imbruglia, Ben Miller, John Malkovich

In the film, English is a low-level MI7 bureaucrat who gets his "big break" under the most tragic circumstances: an explosion at a funeral wipes out every other active British agent. With the rest of the agency gone, the safety of the Crown Jewels falls into the hands of the most overconfident, yet least capable, man in England. A Star-Studded (and Silly) Cast