Watching Johnny Depp’s new period piece “The Libertine” isn’t exactly like watching a fully fleshed out film. It’s almost like looking at a shoebox diorama inspired by some non-existent, superior film. All the necessary pieces are there to let you know what it’s about but, ultimately, there’s not a whole lot for you to care about.

The film is a snore-inducing, bargain-barrel-at-Wal-Mart, bucket of filth.

From the outset, Depp, as Earl of Rochester John Wilmot, confronts the audience and tells us that we will not like him. He’s right. What follows is an aimlessly wandering fluff piece, shamelessly pandering to Depp’s ability to play a swaggering, drunken buffoon. He’s played this part before, as Capt. Jack Sparrow, but with much more zest and crackling enthusiasm.

Perhaps the main reason we don’t like Wilmot is because we don’t care about him. The film cheats its audience of a purpose or reason for being. I don’t think either Bob or Harvey Weinstein themselves could give me a reasonable answer as to why this film was even made, beyond letting Depp play in his new “leading-man sandbox.”

Wilmot, as we learn, is constantly in trouble with King Charles II, played by an eerily subdued John Malkovich. The king, sensing potential in Wilmot, is constantly giving him leeway, and even employs him to write a towering work of literature to be a testament to the king’s reign. Wilmot, ever the cynic, mocks the king with an elaborately staged play about fornication.

The lesson is that excess will eventually ruin a man if left unchecked, and Wilmot excels at excess. He drinks, makes love, defies his family, his friends and it eventually leads to his downfall. He does so in a way that doesn’t leave a damp eye in the audience, not a single tear. We’re not supposed to care, remember?

The problem with “The Libertine” is that Wilmot’s ways don’t have any emotional resonance with the people that he encounters. In a film in which the main character is deplorable, there are supposed to be a few people that are redeeming enough to care about after their lives are ruined by such a selfish, decaying soul.

Such is not the case here. His estranged wife and the forgiving king are obviously just asking for it, and his friends are faulted by their inability to detach themselves from such blatantly dangerous company.

Newcomer Laurence Dunmore directs as if he watched all of Depp’s collaborations with uber-creepy director Tim Burton and got camera envy. In fact, while watching “The Libertine,” I couldn’t help but wish it actually was a Depp/Burton combo. It’s high time that Burton directed another period piece anyways, the perfect place for a mind like his to run wild.

Unfortunately, we will sadly remain Burton-less. Deprived of an engaging story, “The Libertine” may best be remembered as the film that managed to suck the life out of the formerly-engaging Johnny Depp.

Rating: zero out of four stars.

Frank Miller can be reached @[email protected].