Mortdecai: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
After a priceless painting is stolen, shady art dealer Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is recruited by an old rival (Ewan McGregor) to get it back. Mortdecai questions his rival’s intentions, but takes the job for the money and to keep his high-maintenance wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) happy. With the help of his manservant (Paul Bettany), Mortdecai must face terrorists, angry Russians and more in a hilarious globe-trotting chase.
I wasn’t too sure that this was going to be my cup of tea after seeing many trailers of this film. My first impression of it was that it was going to be a over the top slapstick comedy and that’s pretty much what it was. The thing is that I ended up really enjoying it a lot. I forgot how much Hollywood has lacked films like this and it was such a pleasant surprise. Automatically it reminded me of movies that I loved and missed like the Pink Panther franchise, Austin Powers films and even Mr. Bean in some instances. Depp in recent years has gone a bit “out there” with all of the various characters he’s played and to be perfectly honest I was getting burnt out by them all but Mortdecai is hilariously charming and is an obvious homage to British comedy. Paltrow, McGregor and Bettany are all fantastic in their supporting roles with honorable mention going to Olivia Munn and Jeff Goldblum for their part as a portion of some of the punchlines. This film is something that the comedy genre has been missing and since this is based on an anthology of books I hope there will be a sequel (probably not due to the low box office return). This may not be everyone’s cup of tea but for those of you that can appreciate a good slapstick comedy then this will be perfect to check out. 7/10
Special Features:
Stolen Moments: On the Set of Mortdecai – A Behind The Scenes feature that includes interviews with the cast and crew as well as clips from the film.
The Art of Noise: Making Music for Mortdecai – This feature is basically a profile for composer Geoff Zanelli.
