Johnny Depp reached his lowest point with the time warp comedy Mortdecai, a movie that not only feels entirely irrelevant for the sum of its runtime, but is outrageously annoying. The central character, one Charles Mortdecai of the title, is irksome beyond measure - the epitome of all the insufferable characters he's unleashed upon movie-goers across the years, and one that is entirely defined by a) a weird accent and b) a "funny" moustache. Mortdecai is the sort of film that has no clear target audience. Was it aimed at children? Surely no child would want to sit through this? Adults, then? But then why would any right-minded adult want to spend 100 minutes in the company of dated jokes, repetitive gags and a character who makes you want to murder him after just 15 minutes? After the first sexual innuendo, Mortdecai enters the realms of "annoying." After the seventeenth, you're genuinely contemplating reaching for a revolver and... you know.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
