Johnny Depp: Hollywood's Hidden Joke

I have always maintained, and shall continue to maintain until sufficiently proven otherwise, that Johnny Depp is a bad actor. That is not to say he cannot act, because he certainly can act. Although his acting rather strikes a balance that I find comparable to Jim Carrey – boringly serious or stupidly outlandish. To give credit where it is due, Depp has found success in the past through playing the outlandish caricatures of Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands, and yet as of late even the goofball characters have been flopping. Badly.

Depp’s last three leading roles have been in films that are arguably the worst he has ever been involved with – Dark Shadows, Transcendence, and Mortdecai. An Adam’s family rip off, an attempt to be as thought provoking as a slice of toast, and just classic Depp (that is not a compliment). Dark Shadows represents another outing of the outlandish Depp and could have tricked you into thinking it was an Adam Sandler film, which is sort of ironic given then even Sandler’s attempt at a Dracula/Adam’s Family Hotel film, Transylvania was a better film than Dark Shadows.

Transcendence, you could say, is the cinematic equivalent of any time Joey Barton decides to try and become a philosopher on Twitter. It is lacking in the ability to provoke thought, and the origin of this pseudo-philosophy is a joke at the best of times. In my opinion, as the film goes on Depp figuratively does an Agent Smith and turns into Neo (Keanu), to the point where his acting is so wooden he is quite literally becomes a machine.

Finally there is Mortdecai where Johnny Depp plays a posh Jack Sparrow. There is surely a plethora of jokes to be made about Depp’s acting in this too, most likely based around his moustache. How about, his acting and character throughout the film is essentially Peter Griffin doing a long moustache fart. That’ll work.

Ultimately, i have just proceeded to poke fun at Johnny Depp for his most recent showings, as they are all indeed terrible films. Yet somehow these films, and Depp himself, are still considered blockbusters. In this sense, Depp and his films are comparable to Adam Sandler and such films as Jack and Jill and Grown Ups 2, or perhaps Jim Carrey and Dumb and Dumber Too, all racking in the money, all terrible films with terrible leading men. Johnny Depp truly deserves this company as he is no better than them.

Conor M.