Movie Review: Mortdecai


We officially have our first awful movie of 2015 ... and it's only January. I had high hopes for Mortdecai, because of its cast: Johnny Depp (in a weirdo role, as usual), Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, and more; however, the first twenty minutes or so of the film are boring, and the film continues to offer only light laughs - if any - throughout the rest of its runtime.

Mortdecai (Depp) is rich (or at least was, at one time or another) but he and his wife (Paltrow) are looking at bankruptcy, as they owe about $8M in back taxes. A detective (Ewan McGregor) who is familiar with Mortdecai's stolen art background comes to him for help in finding a priceless painting that was stolen, and offers a finders fee. Mortdecai, who lives in England, flies all over the world to find the painting, from LA to Russia and back, and learns a few surprising things about the painting in the process.

Johnny Depp always plays weird characters, but even he - an actor whom I love - couldn't save this script, which is dreadful. Gwyneth Paltrow looks fantastic (must be the GOOP recipes?) but also couldn't save the script. We also have Ewan McGregor, Jeff Goldblum (in a small part), and Paul Bettany, as Mortdecai's manservant, which is one of the only funny parts in the whole movie. Mortdecai is also obsessed with mustaches, and growing his own, but most of the time it comes off as (you guessed it) weird, rather than funny.

No, don't see this movie. I hate giving "No" reviews but when I do, it's justified; sometimes I'll recommend a movie for a matinee (not full-price) but I can't even justify this movie as such, which was a disappointment based on its talented cast. The movie screened on a Thursday the day before it came out (yesterday, in fact), which is sometimes a sign that it's not very good, and it currently has 9% on Rotten Tomatoes. I suppose if you really, really want to see this film, I can't stop you; just be warned ahead of time that the laughs are few and far between, and the plot is very inconsistent as well.

Mortdecai is in theaters today, January 23rd, and is rated R with a runtime of 106 minutes. 2 stars out of 5.

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