Mortdecai

Comedy spoofs, and even more so, British comedy spoofs are often fraught with powder dry humor which can cut right to the core, but in the case of "Mortdecai", some lines, although very funny, seemed a bit stagy and tired. Writing or directing? Maybe a bit of both.

Juggling some angry Russians, the British Mi5 lead by Martland (Ewan McGregor), his impossibly leggy wife, Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) and an international terrorist, debonair art dealer and part time rogue Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) must traverse the globe armed only with his good looks and special charm in a race to recover a stolen Goya painting rumored to contain the code to a lost bank account rife with Nazi gold.
As Mortdecai is confronted by Martland to retrieve this painting, he must remind Mortdecai that his motivation to do so is the fact that Mortdecai is heading his way to becoming broke, so how could he refuse. So he and his man-servant/bodyguard Jock (Paul Bettany) set out on a global quest to find this painting and bring it back so, if for no other reason than to become solvent once more.

Others to round out the cast are Olivia Munn as Georgina Krampf, Jeff Goldblum as Krampf, Georgina's father, Jonny Pasvolsky as Emil, Guy Burnet as Maurice, Martland's assistant, Michael Culkin as Sir Graham, Ulrich Thomsen as Romanov, Alec Utgoff as Dmitri and Rob de Groot as Vladimir.

This was directed with lightness and good pacing by David Koepp ("The Trigger Effect" '96, "Stir of Echoes" '99, "Suspense" (TV movie) '03, "Secret Window" '04, "Ghost Town" '08, "Premium Rush" '12). Some of the scenes seemed a little stagy, however the pacing was executed well, although with the likes of Depp and Paltrow, how could you go wrong. The culprip here was actually the writing by Eric Aronson ("On the Line" (TV movie). The fact that this was based on the novel, "Don't Point That Thing at Me" by Kyril Bonfiglioli actually helped the writer, because otherwise, this script could've been more disjointed than it was. The only thing that kept this going at all was the cast, but even they, good actors that they are, could not save this. It had a promising premise, but when the writer only has one other writing credit to his name, the odds are that the project might suffer. Trust me, I know that people need to gain experience, but when the last script they've done was back in '01, maybe the best thing for these writers are to get more experience doing TV for awhile. It wasn't a total wash, Depp as this debonair, over-the-top British character was uproarious and hilarious, so as long as you keep your eyes on his character, you'll get through this.

It's a fun flick as long as one is not looking for a taught script. But if you like characters that are completely over-the-top, this will be a scream for all. It gave me enough laughs that kept me going until credits end.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                                    Rated: R                                   107mins.