Your Highness Review

                                                 
                                                          2 1/2 Nuts

Director: David Gordon Green

With the amount of publicity Your Highness received via both the internet and television, one wonders if there is a chance of it living up to the hype. Could this movie turn into our generation’s The Princess Bride?  Unfortunately, the answer, is no. 

The film is about Thadeous played by Danny McBride, who sets out on a quest with his brother Fabious (James Franco, Spiderman). Together they must rescue Fabious’s soon to be wife, Belladonna from the evil Wizard Lizar. In their travels they run into Isabel, played by Natalie Portman, who assists them on their journey.

The story isn’t exactly original. However this film is intended as a comedic spoof of medieval times so it doesn’t need to be original to still be funny. Regrettably the parody doesn’t work well, due to the fact that everything is taken to such extremes that the audience knows this isn’t even remotely close to what it was like back then. This film is in no way subtle with it’s very ‘In your face’ humor.  Although the characters speak using old English, the content of the dialogue comes right out of the 21^st century. 

There is no denying, this is a funny film that has the audience laughing from start to finish.  Unfortunately, the problem lies in ‘how’ the movie gets the audience to laugh. There was an unusual amount of jokes where the punch line was the F-bomb. Sure, it was funny the first few times but eventually one grows tired of it and wants something different. The film seems to sink to the lowest common denominator to get a laugh and then somehow goes lower.  

With all the film’s flaws, Danny McBride keeps this comedy afloat. He is hysterical, and the majority of the laughs come from his lines. James Franco and Natalie Portman are not particularly bad in the film; however their characters could have been easily played by anyone else. They are much stronger as serious actors then they are as comedic actors as we have seen in their respective signature performances in 127 hours and Black Swan.  

A lot of time (and money) was put into the set design and mythological creatures in this film.  The creatures fit well with the absurd and perverse feel of the rest of the movie. A good deal of special effects is used for both the monsters and the wizard’s magic. They went a bit over the top in these areas almost to a fault, and viewers may find themselves rather annoyed by the bright lights and loud noises during the fight scenes. 

In a peaNut Shell: This is still a funny movie, despite its problems. Although, anyone past college age will probably find this film offensive and should refrain from seeing it for this reason. It’s not a great comedy; however there are many scenes where you are guaranteed to laugh and isn’t that the point anyway?


First published in The Daily Targum