Critic Reviews

It’s exactly the sort of oddball trifle, like Hudson Hawk, that tends to attract the ire of baffled audiences and grumpy critics. It’s also the sort of oddball trifle that, like Hudson Hawk, will put certain aficionados of silliness in a pretty good mood.

Those who do find their way into this supremely silly action-mystery caper are in for a few grins if not laughs thanks largely to the deft — and daft — performance of Johnny Depp in the title role.

The hard part will be convincing audiences to shake off their Depp fatigue and embrace a film that's daffy, dated, and precisely as intended.

Mortdecai is by no means a disaster — the occasional joke lands, and there’s at least some fun to be found in the frenetic farce of all the conspiracies and the running-around... Still, I spent most of the movie waiting for it to find its rhythms and set a witty pace for itself that would allow the humor to build and the outrageous situations to pay off grandly.

The story is nonsensical and the action tepid. So if you don’t find the Brit-quips funny, there’s not much for you in Mortdecai, just vintage British motorcars, foppish gibberish and Depp curling and re-curling that mustache, punctuating every line with “Right!” or “Quite!” That makes for a quite watchable mess.

Beyond stiff and halfhearted performances, tired and infantile comic material and a needlessly complicated plot, the real, truly piercing shortcoming of the movie is that it lacks a compelling reason to exist.

The movie is too odd and randy to play for kids on an Austin Powers level, and too broad to really work as farce. But Depp, god bless him, fully commits, and finds a few genuinely funny moments amidst all the outsize mugging and mild sociopathy.

Contrary to appearances, Mortdecai isn’t a total disaster: Depp may be suffering the most catastrophic career slump since Eddie Murphy said yes to Norbit, but he’s still perfectly watchable.

With a varied wardrobe of retro men's finery and a hirsute upper lip, the title character of the silly comedy Mortdecai is the center of a whirlwind of horrible British accents, too much gagging, not enough good gags and weak dialogue that, while not exactly terrible, is terribly boring.

Mortdecai succeeds more as a talky farce than an action-packed adventure. But it would be even better if Mortdecai weren’t about Mortdecai at all.