Ewan McGregor, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Goldblum, Oliver Platt, Olivia Munn, Paul Bettany, Aubrey Plaza, and Johnny Depp. With a cast like that, MORTDECAI should be one of the most buzzed about films of 2015. So, why does it feel like a massive flop waiting to happen? I found the first trailer to be funny in a broad sort of way, but this new international trailer makes me feel like this is a rehash of JOHNNY ENGLISH, AUSTIN POWERS, and every other film inspired by Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
MORTDECAI comes from writer/director David Koepp who wrote the films JURASSIC PARK, SPIDER-MAN, PANIC ROOM, and numerous others. As a filmmaker, he has been less than stellar (see SECRET WINDOW), but I had high hopes for this movie. That is until I saw this new international trailer.
This new trailer, complete with unnecessarily blunt voice-over, knocks you over the head with the fact that Depp’s character is a bumbling idiot. He falls down, he makes lame one-liners, and he doesn’t seem to have any clue what he is doing. And yet he still seems to be a brilliant spy. How many times have we seen this same plot before and it has rarely, if ever, worked. I am beginning to think that Johnny Depp is not the actor we thought he was and is instead just a high end version of Adam Sandler. I pray that I am wrong and this is just a poor trailer, but it doesn’t look good.
MORTDECAI hits theaters on February 6, 2015.
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