OxfordPress.com

Grade: C-

Verdict: Keep this "Window" shut.

Johnny Depp can make almost any movie better.

That's better. Not necessarily good.

"Secret Window," a hack job patched together from bits of Stephen King's earlier, better stories ("Misery" meets "The Shining"), is such a cheeseball it ultimately subverts even Depp's considerable charm and talent.

Not that Depp goes down without a fight. He plays Mort Rainey, an eccentric, albeit successful, writer who's cloistered himself in his lakeside cottage in upstate New York during a troublesome divorce from his cheating wife (Maria Bello). Isolated by the plot, Depp spends much of the movie by himself -- and he's hilarious. The things he does (peculiar popping noises with his mouth, flopping around on a couch, giggling to himself, guzzling bags of Doritos) in his remote cabin rival Bruce Campbell's surreal turn in "Evil Dead II."

In fact, the movie would be far more enjoyable if we could just watch Depp wander around doing weird, funny stuff. But the plot intrudes in the form of John Shooter (John Turturro, wasted), a hayseed from Mississippi, who "tawwks lahk thi-is" and accuses Mort of stealing "mah stow-ree." The story in question is "Secret Window."

Shooter vows to do awful things to Mort's dog, wife and friends (including Charles S. Dutton, doubly wasted) if Mort don't -- I mean, doesn't -- fess up.

Depp does everything except walk on water to keep us interested but to no avail.

Mort may have stolen Shooter's story, but Columbia Pictures stole my hour and 45 minutes.