Cinemavenger

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Mortdecai

Let's hear it for truth in advertising!  Every single commercial, preview and promo clip for Mortdecai made it look like a shitpocalypse.  Each ad made the case more convincingly than the last that this movie was going to be an extra large ass sandwich with a side of santorum-slathered fries, and lo and behold that's exactly what it is.

If you gave a retarded bonobo a Super 8 camera, some ketamine and final cut approval, it would turn in a better film than Mortdecai.

A cynically obvious attempt to steal the Peter Sellers Pink Panther formula of a European bumbler somehow managing to solve a mystery, Mortdecai forgets that Sellers was fully invested in the role, Clouseau was a masterfully constructed character and the Pink Panther movies had top notch supporting casts and plots that, you know, MADE FUCKING SENSE!

Take all of that away, throw in not one, not two but three of the worst car chases ever committed to film, one CG explosion so crappily executed it would get the Dean's daughter kicked out of film school and a bunch of 60s style music meant to subtly reference the (I can't believe I'm saying this) far superior Austin Powers flicks, and you end up with Mortdecai.

Lord Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is introduced as a wealthy art dealer and international adventurer drowning in cliches like being a world class swordsman and firearms expert.  Within minutes, we learn that Mortdecai is actually a flat broke, mid-level fence of stolen art, a whiner and a complete twat.  The only person he ever manages to shoot is his cockney Cato, Jock (Paul Bettany), and when he finally picks up a sword it's a minor miracle that he does so by the handle rather than the blade.

If any of this was handled with even the smallest amount of knowing humor, Mortdecai might have had a chance, but everyone from his smart and sexy wife, Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow), to his government handler, Inspector Martland (Ewan McGregor), view him as the idiot he is while still inexplicably treating him like he's some sort of genius.  It makes about as much sense as a razorblade enema.

Nic Cage used to be the poster child for actors who couldn't turn down a script.  See the hilarious CollegeHumor spoof "Nicolas Cage's Agent" for popcult proof:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eExfV_xKaiM. 

After choosing to appear in such recent crimes against cinema as Dark Shadows, The Lone Ranger, Transcendence and Tusk, with Mortdecai the once great Johnny Depp (he of Edward Scissorhands and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas fame) officially dethrones Cage as the King of Anyscriptwilldovia.

Punch yourself in the face.  Staple a salmon to your tits and jump into the Grizzly habitat at your local zoo.  Bang a five-dollar whore without a love glove.  Any of these would be better than sitting through the most painfully unfunny hour-and-forty-five-minute mustache joke ever committed to film.

January 25, 2015