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TV show review: CONTINUUM season 4
PHOTOGRAPHY

MORTDECAI

DVD Review by David Blackwell

 

DETAILS:  107 minutes, two featurettes, trailers, previews, digital copy

VIDEO:  2.40:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)

AUDIO: English 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, English Descriptive Audio

Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish

 

STUDIO: Lionsgate/ Oddlot Entertainment, Infinitum Nihil/ Mad Chance

RELEASE DATE: 5-12-2015

Shady art dealer Lord Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is days away from losing the family estate if he doesn’t pay $8 million in debt.  He is recruited by an MI-5 agent (Ewan McGregor)- an old romantic rival for the affections of Charlie’s wife (Gwyneth Paltrow)- to get back a stolen and priceless Goya painting that was thought to be lost.   Mortdecai and his manservant Jock (Paul Bettany)- who happens to get laid frequently- are off to find the painting and encounter a variety of characters (a terrorist, a Russian mobster, the guy who wants to buy Charlie’s car and the guy’s nymphomaniac daughter (Olivia Munn) who think Mortdecai has the stolen Goya.

 

MORTDECAI reminds you of the slapstick plots you see in the old Pink Panther movies and it is a passion project for Johnny Depp who loves the Mortdecai novels by Kyril Bonfgioli (with this movie being adapted from one of those books, Don’t Point That Thing at Me).  Sometimes the movie is good with the comedy and sometimes the plot is a mess as David Koepp is a director for hire (and one wonders why Koepp didn’t have his hand in writing the screenplay which is credited to Eric Aronson).

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

STOLEN MOMENTS (“ON THE SET OF MORTDECAI”) is a behind-the-scenes featurette with cast interviews (Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Paul Bettany, Olivia Munn)

THE ART OF NOISE- a behind-the-scenes look at the score of the movie as one of the two composers (Geoff Zanelli) talks about the writing, recording, and themes of the movie’s score

 

Theatrical teaser and full theatrical trailer (which includes a deleted map gag and part of a deleted scene) are here in addition to previews for THE DUFF, SPARE PARTS, WILD CARD, THE VOICES, TRACERS, and WHILE WE’RE YOUNG.

 

A code to stream and download an ultraviolet digital copy of the movie is also included.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS: MORTDECAI reminds me of the Pink Panther movies starring Peter Sellers.   It is a strange and sometimes funny movie, but it comes off sometimes as Johnny Depp’s vanity project instead of a movie that should have been clever as the Pink Panther films.

 

This review is ©5-14-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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