#10: MORTDECAI

#10: MORTDECAI (24.1.15)

Turning up and taking a salary were: Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGreggor and Olivia Munn. 'Special' guest star Jeff Goldblum.

Script adapted from a novel by Eric Aronson. Directed (although that's a bit of a stretch) by David Koepp.

106 minutes too long.

Who ordered the shit sandwich, with extra shit and a side order of shit on the side, don't hold the shit?

Everybody and everything about this movie, except for Paul Bettany and Jeff Godblum, is shit. Johnny Depp rips off Terry Thomas and the Fast Show and is shit. Gwyneth Paltrow, deciding on a conscious uncoupling with good acting, paints eyeballs on her closed eye lids and sleep walks through the whole thing and is shit. Ewan McGreggor thought he'd signed up for a seaside panto in Porthcawl and is shit (oh no he's not! Oh yes he bloody well is.) Olivia Munn turns up to be groped by Depp and is shit and Jeff Goldblum (who, even if he turned up and did a huge steaming shit on a desk couldn't be shit, even if he tried.) but he's only on screen for three scenes and he's gone, so that's shitty.

The script is shit, filled with some terrible jokes including one where Depp admits to having sex in a French Embassy with an underage girl, which I think makes our hero a pedophile. The sound track is shit. But the biggest pile of steaming shit in this film is the direction, which is so ball-achingly lazy, uninspired and boring that it actually intrudes and becomes noticable.

The plot involves Terry Thomas, sorry Johnny Dump's Mortdecai - a rich (but broke) upperclass, art dealer/con-artist and shit hired by MacGreggor to track down a missing Goya painting while a group of baddies run around killing people to own the painting and his wife tags along for shits and giggles.

Despite being dull, boring and, did I mention - shit. This isn't a total train wreck like Taken 3 but it's a close run thing. There are a few funny moments. However, bear in mind this is a 12a certificate film and filled with an on-screen erection, explicit jokes about sex, the forementioned underage sex gag, violence, torture and some other stuff so it might not be wholly appropriate for younger kids, like 12-year olds.

My 11 year son fell asleep during this, the first time that's ever happened and remarked when he woke up, "I didn't even care if I missed anything."

2/10