The "special relationship" between the UK and the US is more than just an increasingly queasy political football. It also extends to the movies, where Hollywood has been busy telling stories about the other side of the pond for decades.
The only problem is that every now and then you get the sense that maybe they never actually visited Britain. Or researched it. Or hired any British people. Or even looked it up on a map. Here are the 11 most egregious Britisher wrongisms.
1. Thor: The Dark World
When it's not in Asgard, the second Thor film is set mostly in England, including a pretty spectacular portal-filled fight from the Gherkin to Greenwich.
All's well until Thor finds himself at Charing Cross Tube station, asks how to get to Greenwich, and is told he's just three stops away. Except he's bloody not. There are a few ways to get to Greenwich from Charing Cross, but they all involve at least one change and a lot more than three stops. And we bet he doesn't even have an Oyster card either.
2. Johnny English
OK, sure, maybe we shouldn't expect too much from a Rowan Atkinson comedy called Johnny English, but come on. The whole plot hinges on the idea that the Queen actually owns all the land in the country (she doesn't), that she can abdicate at a moment's notice (she can't), and that whoever happens to be sitting in the throne when the crown touches their head becomes monarch (they don't).
3. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Look, we get it. It's a Mission: Impossible film, you've got to have a silly scene where Tom Cruise gets a mission from a phone or something similar and then it self-destructs. It's a thing.
But does it have be so achingly implausible as to take place in a functioning red phone box that hasn't been vandalised, completely coated in fliers for prostitutes, drowned in urine, or all three? That's a step too far. See also: a roomy, apparently prosperous jazz record shop just off Piccadilly Circus.
4. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Mainly remembered now for Kevin Costner's terrible mullet, this 1991 blockbuster either got British geography badly wrong or seriously overestimated the impact of a good pair of walking boots. At one point Costner's Robin Hood cheerfully proclaims he can walk from Dover to his father's castle in Loxley "by nightfall".
Given that it would take five hours by car, and that he added 300 miles to his trip by visiting Hadrian's Wall along the way, we're a little sceptical.
5. Basil the Great Mouse Detective
Disney's love letter to Sherlock Holmes is delightful, underrated, and features a robot mouse Queen Victoria, which is really everything we should need to say about it.
Except that at one point they eat cheese crumpets. But they aren't crumpets. Look at them. What are they? Muffins? Cupcakes? Scones? We don't know, but we're offended on behalf of crumpets everywhere.
6. Mary Poppins
Has any accent ever received as much scrutiny and criticism as Dick Van Dyke's execrable attempt at cockney in Mary Poppins? He doesn't sound much like he's from East London, London, England, Britain, or Earth. Literally no-one has ever spoken like this.
Still, at least he has a good excuse – he revealed later that his accent coach was actually Irish, and was no better at the cockney accent than he was.
7. Braveheart
It might not surprise you to hear that Braveheart is not 100% factually accurate, but it's impressive just how much it got wrong.
Ignoring the very visible white van in the climactic battle sequence, let's talk fashion. William Wallace and his fellow Scots wear blue woad on their faces, which hadn't been used for at least 1,000 years by then. And they don kilts, which wouldn't be popular for another 400 years yet.
That means the costumes somehow get Scottish history simultaneously wrong in two opposing directions, like doing the splits with your feet 1,400 years apart – which is impressive in a way all its own.
8. Fast & Furious 6
Where to start? There's the massive illegal rave outside the Foreign Office. There's Rita Ora kicking off a street race right by Downing Street. Then there's the fact that they drive up Whitehall, somehow skip Trafalgar Square, hit Piccadilly Circus from the wrong direction, and then find themselves driving back up Whitehall all over again, twisting the London street map into a sort of pretzel shape.
9. EuroTrip
American teenagers Scott and Cooper find themselves in a London pub called The Feisty Goat, which is inexplicably a "private members bar" for Vinnie Jones and the supporters of Manchester United. You know, the Manchester that's the best part of 200 miles from London.
Then again, the film also suggests that '9 to 5 (Morning Train)' is the official Man U song, so maybe they weren't really going for total accuracy here.
10. London Has Fallen
With London under a terrorist attack, it seems smart enough when Gerard Butler suggests he and the President should avoid the American embassy because "they'll be expecting that". Except they then proceed to run towards Charing Cross station – past the US embassy – and ignoring at least four closer Underground stations. They definitely wouldn't have been expecting that.
11. Minions
We know it's just a cartoon, but the plot hinges on Bob the Minion pulling Excalibur from its famous stone in a London park (yeah, you know – that park with the legendary fictional sword in the stone) and thereby automatically inheriting the throne by law from a disgruntled Elizabeth II. What?
