Mortdecai

Starring: Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Paul Bettany, Olivia Munn, Jeff Goldblum, Jonny Pasvolsky, Michael Culkin
Directed by: David Koepp
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Comedy, Mystery
2015

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An art dealer (Johnny Depp) gets involved in an international scandal when he's asked to help locate a missing painting.

Review:

Tim: My how Johnny Depp has fallen. I remember, not too long ago, that a new Depp film was a must-see, whatever it was he was doing. In a very short amount of time, that script has completely flipped- now, a Depp movie elicits eye rolls and having to psych yourself up to see it. He's made quite a few terrible movies in a row. His whole, "Look at me, I'm so weird and eccentric" thing has gone way past stale- it's moldy at this point.

All that leads us to Mortdecai- from all angles, this looked like another bad Depp movie. Could it reverse the trend? Certainly not- in fact, this is the worst Depp movie I have seen in a long, long time. This is an abysmal failure of a movie. It does almost nothing right and was often torturous to sit through. I have to believe this is a contender for the worst movie of 2015. It's just bad in every aspect.

The film works hard to be zany and humorous, but it almost never works. Depp looks completely buffoonish and I found almost nothing he did to be funny. His performance as Mortdecai is completely cringe-worthy. It's almost as if everyone is in on the joke except Depp. He looks and sounds completely ridiculous, and he's going through the motions like he's spitting comedy gold. I hated Depp in this stupid role. Depp seriously needs to play a string of very normal, boring roles to combat this tendency to go way over-the-top. Depp is bad in this film.

Gwyneth Paltrow isn't much better. She is a good actress, but she's handed a lackluster part. She was fine, but really, it's hard for anyone to be very successful in a film like this. Ewan McGregor fared even better- he was decent in the part. I felt bad he had such poor material to work with. Jeff Goldblum added nothing to the film and should have passed on this part. Olivia Munn continues to show she has little to no talent. Thankfully, her screen time is minimal because I was embarrassed for her. Strangely enough, only Paul Bettany emerges as a positive from the cast. I don't know how he did it, but his Jock is the most enjoyable part of this entire movie. It's probably because he has to play the straight man to all the awful ridiculousness around him, so he never feels culpable in the awfulness of the film. I actually really enjoyed his performance and he had some memorable lines. If there's any redeeming quality to this pathetic film, it's Bettany.

The script is sophomoric and simply not funny. Outside of Bettany, I think the only thing that made me laugh in the entire film was the "open your balls" gag. It's not even that funny, but compared to the rest of the dredge in this film, it was refreshing. I may have actually uttered an out-loud laugh, the first and really only non-Bettany laugh I had. The movie isn't entertaining or enjoyable in the least. It was truly hard to watch.

I could go on, but you get the point. Mortdecai is the latest in a long string of Depp failures and it very well might be the lowest point yet. Truly, there's not much worse you can get. This is a terrible movie and I regret deep down in my bones for ever sitting down to watch it.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 3



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland