The whole spy parody subgenre has had a troubled history and
as of late there are two rival films on general release that are seemingly
competing to win out at the box office. One is Kingsman: The Secret Service
(2014), Matthew Vaughan’s Bond-influenced spies-in-training blockbuster that combines
traits of two of Vaughan’s earlier films (you can sort of look at this film as
Kick-Ass (2010) meets X-Men: First Class (2011) albeit with spies replacing
superheroes) and the other new film by screenwriter/director David Koepp (Jurassic
Park (1993) is probably his most beloved screenplay), Mortdecai, is an film
adaptation for the character created by writer Kyril Bonfiglioli. Kingsman is a
decent film. Decent not great. It also seems set to be a big hit. Mortdecai…well…
As I mentioned at the start, spy parodies haven’t always
worked. Most of them, in my experience, are rather poor. Even the Austin Powers
films, whilst having some value, eventually outstayed their welcome and whether
it’s the 1967 version of Casino Royale with David Niven, Spy Hard (1996) or the
more recent Johnny English films, parodies of spy films…well, they just don’t
work very well a great deal of the time. You could attribute this to a few
reasons. One being that spy films have, in the past, stretched things to
unbelievable proportions that playing them off for laughs seems completely
redundant, such as with Moonraker (1979) which was probably never meant to be
taken seriously in the first place. Another problem is the lack of imagination
that’s often involved. Everyone knows the tropes. You usually have a suave,
sophisticated and attractive hero, ostensibly a James Bond figure. There’s the
colourful, charismatic and megalomaniacal villain. There’s the glamorous love
interest, often a dangerous femme fatale. Most spy parodies check these off in
some fashion and it understandably becomes tiresome very quickly. Then there’s
the simplest explanation. That they’re just not funny enough.
Mortdecai sort of hits all three of those problems. Charlie
Mortdecai is no James Bond. Bond doesn’t really figure into it when you compare
the two characters, save for Niven’s take on the role. But he’s a parody of the
other gentleman spies that belong to an older world. Johnny Depp’s performance
is itself a collage of caricatures of many other performers. A dash of David
Niven, a touch of Terry Thomas, a pinch of Peter Sellers, a rinse of Rowan
Atkinson and so on. One of Johnny Depp’s greatest facilities as an actor is his
charisma and that he can also be a very transformative actor, able to turn his
own unique style to a number of guises. Here, he does that, but it’s not
original and his cod accent seems to call to mind Captain Jack Sparrow if he
was a country lord. Fellow American Gwyneth Paltrow also turns on the British
accent as Mortdecai’s wife and she fares better for it but there’s a feeling
that she’s not giving it her all.
Ewan McGregor, who has a capacity to incorporate the styles
of different actors into his own style (his turn as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels did have a rather faithful
touch of Alec Guinness to it) but as Charlie’s superior, who also carries a
torch for Gwyneth Paltrow, he sometimes lunges into a complete Roger Moore impersonation
and not letting his own abilities shine through as he has done in earlier films
such as Haywire (2011) whilst Olivia Munn doesn’t make much of an impact (admittedly
more a fault of the fact that she doesn’t have much screen time) but is effectively
a re-tread of Tia Carrere’s role in True Lies (1994). In fact, the only actor
in the entire film that I felt rather drawn to was Paul Bettany as Mortdecai’s
manservant, Jock which Bettany imbues with a nice mix of stone-faced
seriousness and comic ability.
For whatever reason you can give to the performances, it
must be stated that it doesn’t work as a comedy because it’s simply not that
funny. Thankfully, it doesn’t resort to the worst of toilet humour but the main
problem of the film is that it keeps running with the same old gag that wasn’t
even funny at the start. The principal runner is Mortdecai’s obsessive enthusiasm
for his newly-grown moustache, which everyone despises, especially Mrs.
Mortdecai who gags at trying to kiss her husband because of it (in turn he then
gags due to a sympathetic reflex). This joke is used a lot. Some small chuckles
may be had from some of the gags but this far from the best possible material.
Given the popularity of the original Mortdecai books, you
could be forgiven for thinking that this had potential. A sort of spy story
enthused with very British class-based comedy of P.G Wodehouse for example
probably would have the potential for something enjoyable. The issue is not so
much the concept (even if it’s not very original) but more its execution. With
some better gags and better performances, Mortdecai could’ve been a better
film, even a very good film. There’s just a feeling that what’s there simply
isn’t good enough.
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