It’s official. Gwyneth Paltrow’s new movie “Mortdecai” is a stinker but writer Eric Aronson still hopes for a sequel.
In “Mortdecai” Paltrow once again puts on a fake British accent playing Lady Mortdecai opposite Johnny Depp’s Charles Mortdecai. The film sees Depp searching for a stolen painting that has something to do with some missing Nazi gold from World War II. The previews make it seem like the movie will be a screwball comedy.
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Movie review site Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a whopping 12% rating. And in case you think that this is not a meaningful way to gage a movie’s quality just listen to what some of the critics have said.
The Hollywood Reporter said, “Any film credited with its own “mustache wrangler” really should have been much more fun than Johnny Depp’s latest misfiring action-comedy. Mostly set in contemporary England, but aiming for the zingy retro feel of a vintage Peter Sellers or Terry-Thomas feature from the Swinging Sixties, Mortdecai is an anachronistic mess that never succeeds in re-creating the breezy tone or snappy rhythm of the classic caper movies that it aims to pastiche. Despite a heavyweight cast and the solid directing skills of A-list screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Panic Room, Spider-Man), this charmless farce ends up as another black mark on Depp’s recent track record of patchy pet projects.”
The Wrap said, “While watching this new caper, I was reminded why movies like this are called soufflés in the first place: if they don’t stay perfectly aloft, they collapse.”
On Depp’s performance the New York Times said, “Mr. Depp’s wizardly expertise at disappearing into a character is intact. But what if that character isn’t funny and hasn’t an ounce of charm? Charlie Mortdecai, a bumbling aristocratic bon vivant and sociopath who lives beyond his means and deals in stolen art, is a vehicle for Mr. Depp to turn into a kind of Austin Powers manqué. There is no wink behind the wink because Mr. Depp is so busy showing off.”
And yet its writer Eric Aronson is still hoping for a sequel telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I have been working on the sequel for six years; that’s how long I’ve been working on these books. … I know what the sequel is going to be already; it’s already mapped out in my head. And I’ve got a sense of what the third one would be, but none of those decisions are up to me, ” he said.
