The Film
"I am Lord Charlie Mortdecai, and this little bit of magic is my mustache."
If only that were enough to fill an entire 106 minutes of movie, maybe Mortdecai would be worthy of your time. Sadly, it's a massive waste of talent and a $60 million budget.
Johnny Depp is quite a character. However, even his charm won't keep you from wanting to throw things at the TV during this movie. To distract you from the horrible dialogue, Mortdecai throws in a bit of action and an endless parade of famous faces. In fact, if it weren't for Movie 43, Mortdecai could hold the record for "most famous faces in a god-awful film." Instead, it's just plain awful during almost every second of that runtime. And the fact that the movie depends so much on Depp's Snidely Whiplash-styled facial hair isn't exactly helping matters, either.
Depp plays Lord Charlie Mortdecai, who comes off like Terry-Thomas and Inspector Clouseau's love child. However, the "funny" gene seems to have skipped a generation.
Mortdecai is an art dealer, who is forced into seeking out a priceless painting in order to pay off a debt to the British government. The whole plot makes about as much sense as Seinfeld's "The Pilot," where a judge sentences some guy to be Jerry's butler. That was supposed to be ridiculous. This is too, but for a host of other reasons.
Throughout the movie, there are a lot of running "gags." If you find Mortdecai's mustache to be hilarious and everyone's accents to be tolerable, Mortdecai may be the film for you. For everyone else, it will be downright painful. Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Olivia Munn, Jeff Goldblum, and especially Paul Bettany (as Mortdecai's Cato-esque manservant/bodyguard Jock) are all completely wasted -- as your time will be, if you bother to spend any of it on this movie.
The Picture
From the very first scene in the movie, Mortdecai gives viewers a lot to ogle from an image standpoint. The flaming cocktails, the red light fixtures and carpet, the blue lighting, and the comb lines in Johnny Depp's hair will all pull you into this 2.40:1 image. The quality stays stellar from there, with sharp details and plenty of popping colors. Despite being a really bad movie, Mortdecai is a very good-looking film.
The Sound
It's surprising that Lionsgate would bother to give this film a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track. Not because it doesn't have a lot of action, but because... well, why bother? But hey, why stop wasting now? It's not the best use of an immersive track, but it does have moments of gunshots, cars accidents and crunches, shattering glass, and what the movie considers to be slapstick. However, the soundtrack is the star of the show here, standing out the most among all of the action, the actors, and everything else.
The Extras
Final Thoughts
One of this film's running jokes has Gwyneth Paltrow gagging every single time she gets near Mortdecai's mustache. She's not the only one; that's pretty much how I felt throughout the entire film. Despite a decent audio track and sharp visuals, Mortdecai is unbelievably painful to watch.
Product Details
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