“Stupid, ill-disciplined and irritating.”
SPOILER FREE Is anyone else getting absolutely sick of Johnny Depp? His drunken performance of Jack Sparrow in Disney’s drawn-out ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, and since doing negatively received films such as ‘The Tourist’, ‘The Lone Ranger’ and ‘Transcendence’, he’s becoming a bit of a bad egg. There’s certainly been some things that he’s in that I like very much, bit recently I haven’t had many good things to say about him. Although as much as I thought Tim Burton’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ was a big miss, Johnny Depp’s performance was very good. ‘Mortdecai’ however is not at all…
Within the first couple of minutes, we are very aware of the over-exaggerated British accent that Lord Mortdecai is speaking – it seems to be the joke throughout the entire film that he and many others seem to speak this way – it wasn’t funny when I first heard it, and it’s certainly not funny throughout the rest of the film’s duration. It’s a complete narrative mess from beginning to end, and fails to explain where the story is trying to head. When I was asked a couple of nights ago what the film was about, I was actually lost for words – the film’s narrative hadn’t at all crossed my mind, and I actually couldn’t say exactly what it was about. The biggest shame, is that I like Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bennett and Ewan McGregor (in particular) very much, but due to the film’s overall poor quality, no-one has a chance to have any kind of stand-out performance. It was mainly down to the film’s poor explanation which made me feel like I was suffering rather than watching ‘Mortdecai’ – at many times I was wondering what was going on and who the characters were. The character development is so awful, I couldn’t care less for any of the characters – or indeed their fate. ‘Mortdecai’ seems to be a prime example of Hollywood studios becoming bored, and also realising that they feel like they have to make something…
The truth is – they don’t – if you don’t have a good idea, just don’t bother! I feel like ‘Mortdecai’ was a huge waste of everybody’s time. It’s boring, stupid and it’s supposed story is extremely ill-disciplined. I’ve been irritated by a single character all the way through a film before, but Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Lord Mordecai may have just made my top 10. As predicted – it’s hideous.
★
Hudson-Cook 