Johnny Depp’s 2 Worst-Rated Movies of All Time Are ‘Misguided’ According to Critics
Johnny Depp earned a reputation for himself as one of Hollywood’s most recognizable names. Roles in films like the Pirates of the Caribbean series and Edward Scissorhands have demonstrated Depp’s versatility as an actor, and they have also proven to show that he is a box office draw.
However, not every movie Depp is attached to has been successful, and two films, in particular, have bombed in both critical reception and box office numbers.
‘Mortdecai’ flopped in the United States
In 2015, Johnny Depp starred as the titular Charlie Mortdecai in Mortdecai, an action-comedy. Depp’s character in Mortdecai is an art dealer who struggles with debt built up from lavish spending and his doings with the criminal underworld.
To ease his debts, Mortdecai agrees to track down a stolen Francisco Goya painting, but this turns into a madcap adventure with other eccentric characters also tracking the painting.
When Mortdecai hit theaters, it completely flopped with critics, and it holds a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 12%. The consensus about the movie is that it is bizarre in the worst ways, misguided, and consistently unfunny throughout. Even the rare positive review of Mortdecai comes with several caveats.
For example, Edwin Arnaudin of the Asheville Citizen-Times states in his review that Johnny Depp’s, “exaggerated mannerisms and affected speech are sure to infuriate his detractors and please those who enjoy his long line of goofy character creations.” Essentially, for a person to even begin to like Mortdecai, they would have to be a fan of Depp, and even then, it could be hard.
Viewers did respond slightly better to the film than critics, with Mortdecai having an audience score of 30%. This does not mean that the film did well at the box office, though.
IMDb estimates that the movie had a budget of $60 million, and it earned less than $8 million in the US and Canada. Globally, it earned roughly $47 million, but that still is a long way from making back its budget.
‘The Professor’ divided critics and audiences
It is not uncommon for the critical and audience reception of a movie to be vastly different, and this was the case for the 2018 comedy-drama, The Professor. In this film, Johnny Depp stars as Richard, a professor who receives a terminal cancer diagnosis. As Richard comes to terms with his fate, he begins to experience more of life, for better or worse and learns about embracing his remaining time.
On Rotten Tomatoes, The Professor holds a rating of 10%, even worse than Mortdecai. Negative reviews frequently point to the film’s shallow characters, which make the attempts at emotional moments fall flat. Depp’s performance was polarizing, as his typical eccentric acting style was an odd fit for a film with a grounded premise like this.
Audiences felt very differently about The Professor, though, as it holds a 78% Audience Score. Unlike the critics, audiences generally found the emotional moments in the film to be effective and Depp’s performance to be excellent. Despite this positive audience reception, The Professor failed to do much at the box office, earning about $3.6 million according to IMDb.
Most of Depp’s movies have performed better
Mortdecai and The Professor were two films that critics hated, and that failed to make a dent at the box office. However, these do not represent Johnny Depp’s filmography as a whole, as most of his movies do much better.
As previously mentioned, Depp solidified himself as one of the world’s most famous actors through his portrayal of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. In 1994, Depp played the titular role in the biopic Ed Wood, and he received a Golden Globe nomination for this. The year prior, Depp starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the critically-acclaimed film What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
