SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT NAME: TAN KAH INN

STUDENT ID NO: 0322020

FILMS SELECTED: JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN AND SPY

WORD COUNT: 809

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 28TH SEPTEMBER 2015

Comparison of Similarity between Johnny English Reborn and Spy

Movies market contributes a big and steady amount of revenue to the

economy and it acts as a low cost entertainment to the society. The tickets sold as well as

revenue generated in movie industry from 1995 to 2015 by Unknown. (1997). Domestic

Movie Theatrical Market Summary 1995 to 2015. Retrieved 21st September 2015, from

Nash Information Services, LLC website : http://www.the-numbers.com/market/. While

many types of movies are premiered each year, it is no doubt that comedy genre movie

contributes the most to the market share. As according to the data provided by The

Numbers, Comedy genre movie have a market share of 22.16%, follows by Adventure at

21.57% and Action at 17.97%. The market share by each genre from year 1995 to 2015

by Unknown (1997). Market Share for Each Genre 1995-2015. Retrieved 21st September

2015, from Nash Information Services, LLC website :

http://www.the-numbers.com/market/genres .

In order to capture greater market share, the blend of action and comedy was

introduced back in 1930s that combines thrilling plot and courageous stunts. It is then

come to popular in 1980s when comic stars such as Eddie Murphy began casting in action

roles. This genre is light-hearted film to watch and usually involved a lot of special

effects, smashing cars, dramatic fights and hysterical chases with minimal injuries. In

addition, women are also started to involved in action comedy in year 1990 and bring the

genre to wider possibilities (SlideShare, 2015). In this assignment, comparisons between

two action comedies will be taken place and the similarity between both will be compared.

The movies chosen are Johnny English Reborn (2011), and Spy (2015).

First of all, the chosen movies are secret agents movies where the main cast

went undercover to eliminate possible chaos and bring the world back in peace. Even

though both movies are agent based storyline, the main cast in two movies however work

for different types of cooperation and dealt with unalike villains. Johnny English Reborn

serve the royalties, specifically Her Majesty to stop a group of international assassins

while Spy, serve CIA to infiltrate the world deadly arm dealers.

Compared to the timeline and location that took in both movies, Johnny

English Reborn and Spy movies are both filmed as modern society film where latest cars

or gadgets could be seen. They are also having similar film location for some scenes at

France, Italy. Nevertheless, Johnny English Reborn film locations are still mainly based

in UK and China while Spy film location is mostly in Hungary with limited scene in

Italy.

On the other hand, two movies are using high technology gadgets as a part of

the nature of a modern agent. In Johnny English, some high-tech gadgets such as

combat-spec wheel chair, lipstick-camouflage gun, voice-recognition car as well as

grenade-launching umbrella can be seen (Trailer Addict, 2015). As for Spy, even though

high technologies existed, the main cast, however only used basic stuff like pepper spray

and baby wipes-lookalike chloroform wipes (YouTube, 2015).

In addition, even though Rowan Atkinson played as the main cast too in

Johnny English in year 2003 and continue the casting in Johnny English Reborn, however

his silly character as ‘Mr. Bean’ has penetrated into audience minds and his cast as an

agent creates an unique situation as contrast to normal agent movies whereby the main

cast is always filmed by high-intelligence-perceived movie stars, for instance, Matt

Damon in Bourne Identity. This situation goes the same to Spy where the main cast,

Melissa McCarthy body condition and body shape are nowhere near the real agents’

requirement. Nonetheless, both of the main casts show the audiences how they overcome

the impossible regardless their images in the public.

Then , the box office gross tickets and budget in both movies, Johnny

English Reborn is a highly anticipated movies with the famous ‘Mr. Bean’ as main cast,

screening over 1500 screens in the USA, however, the gross tickets did not go as high as

Spy which generates a whopping 76% extra tickets in opening weekend as compared to

Johnny English with over 3700 screens in USA market (IMDB, 2015). The budget for

Spy also relatively higher than Johnny English regardless they are having a lot of

similarity in terms of technology or location.

In a nutshell, the compared movies are successful action comedy movies

where high returns have been obtained from the ticket sales. Even though there are a lot

of similarities between both movies that brings laughter to the audiences, the storyline

however creates different after-movie thoughts and bring different impact to the audience

perception in action comedy genre movies. In conclusion, unlike musical genre movies

that has low market share, or action genre that is sometimes too tension to watch, action

comedy genre is making its way up in the market share as it could literally eliminate the

stress away especially in modern society.

REFERENCES :

1. IMDB, 2015, Gross Ticket sold, Source:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1634122/?ref_=nv_sr_2 (Johnny English Reborn),

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3079380/?ref_=nv_sr_1 (Spy)

2. SlideShare, 2015, Definition of Action Comedy, Source:

http://www.slideshare.net/NyajaCovington/action-comedy

3. Trailer Addict, 2015, Gadget used in Johnny English Reborn, Source:

http://www.traileraddict.com/johnny-english-reborn/featurette-gadgets

4. YouTube, 2015. Gadget used in Spy, Source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lH4gXu52s4