Jason KingYOUR HIGHNESS: A Review
May 11th 2011 20:50
:
Merlin meets Pineapple Express?
Category: Reviews
In a nut-shelled quote,
"Your Highness is a mildly hilarious and spectacularly average blockbuster comedy that does for medieval movies what Tropic Thunder did for war movies." - Mitch, Salty Popcorn.
Many Thanks to Mitch for attending this one in my stead - so much to do and so little time.
Nut-shells aside, I do give credit where credit is due and the team behind "Your Highness", definitely take a step in a different direction in regards to offering you a comedy thats cinematic appeal distances itself from it's current competition. However, just because it's different, doesn't mean it's necessarily better.
"Your Highness" is the latest directorial effort from David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) of a screenplay written by it's star Danny McBride (Pineapple Express) and frequent McBride collaborator Ben Best.
Alongside Danny McBride, this hit-and-miss medieval comedy also stars Academy Award nominee James Franco (Best Actor - 127 Hours) and Academy Award winner Natalie Portman (Best Actress - Black Swan). The always beautiful but here, criminally underused Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer) and Justin Theroux (Charlies Angels: Full Throttle and writer of Iron Man 2, Tropic Thunder and the upcoming Rock of Ages) also star.
Having spent his whole life living spitefully in the stoic shadow of his valiant older brother, the fierce knight Fabious (James Franco), Thadeous (Danny McBride) is reluctantly dragged away from his smoke pipes and slovenly lifestyle, on his heroic brothers quest to save his bride-to-be Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) after she is kidnapped by the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux). Together with Thadeous' loyal aide Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker), this quest leads them through treacherous terrain, magical predicaments and eventually across the path of a loan warrior Isabel (Natalie Portman) who is on a quest of her own. Together, they must find and rescue Belladonna before the 2 moons align and before the evil wizard Leezar can penetrate her in order for her to give birth to a dragon in which he will control, thus fulfilling "The Fuckoning".
Seriously.. that's the story.
It's sounds so stupidly, head-shakingly hilarious written down... but things went a bit askew somewhere and the comedy didn't always translate that well from page to screen.
It is believed that the script was seldom seen on set, the actors and director favoring ad-libbing for the majority of the film, using a script merely for key points and referencing. This works on some movies.. SOME movies and even then, only really if the actors can effortlessly bounce off each other in certain and specific scenes which, despite the amount of acknowledged talent of some of the lead actors here, just didn't work as well as you would hope.
In a movie based on a storyline as ridiculous as the one outlined above, featuring a minotaur with a full-frontal erection scene and a character that I can only describe as a wise old, dope smoking pedophile turtle-fish thing with a glowing brain... you'd think this movie would fall into the classic random stoner comedy category but it's because it tries a little too hard to be something much more, that it finds itself in a category where it's a little too funny to be a full fledged action flick but not the right amount of funny to be a classic stoner flick.
"Your Highness" just didn't seem as laugh out loud funny as I thought it would be. I DID chuckle here and there but ultimately, I was pretty disappointed with the comedy.
In my opinion, the actor who seemed to be having the most fun and thus giving the best performance was Justin Theroux's evil wizard Leezar. Most of his lines were the ones that made me chuckle. Zooey Deschanel, as mentioned before, could've been played by a nobody and James Franco just phoned it in. I have nothing against Danny McBride but you can tell he is trying to get up there with the Seth Rogen/Jonah Hill brat pack.. and unfortunately, this one doesn't get him any closer. Although I will give an honorable mention to Natalie Portman's ass for it's all-too-brief cameo appearance. Actually probably the most memorable thing to come from this movie.
The saving grace for me was surprisingly the set design and visual effects. Those respective teams went above and beyond and created some really, very impressive sets and some awesome visuals that made this movie seem super epic.
It's just a shame that the effort put into making the movie look good eclipsed the effort that should've gone into making the movie actually BE good. Really it's just a shame that I just didn't find it that funny.
"Your Highness" journeys into cinemas TODAY and with the winter nights getting colder, it's not a terrible choice if you want to rug up and see a movie but it's definitely not the best choice either.
5/10
"Your Highness is a mildly hilarious and spectacularly average blockbuster comedy that does for medieval movies what Tropic Thunder did for war movies." - Mitch, Salty Popcorn.
Many Thanks to Mitch for attending this one in my stead - so much to do and so little time.
Nut-shells aside, I do give credit where credit is due and the team behind "Your Highness", definitely take a step in a different direction in regards to offering you a comedy thats cinematic appeal distances itself from it's current competition. However, just because it's different, doesn't mean it's necessarily better.
"Your Highness" is the latest directorial effort from David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) of a screenplay written by it's star Danny McBride (Pineapple Express) and frequent McBride collaborator Ben Best.
Alongside Danny McBride, this hit-and-miss medieval comedy also stars Academy Award nominee James Franco (Best Actor - 127 Hours) and Academy Award winner Natalie Portman (Best Actress - Black Swan). The always beautiful but here, criminally underused Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer) and Justin Theroux (Charlies Angels: Full Throttle and writer of Iron Man 2, Tropic Thunder and the upcoming Rock of Ages) also star.
Having spent his whole life living spitefully in the stoic shadow of his valiant older brother, the fierce knight Fabious (James Franco), Thadeous (Danny McBride) is reluctantly dragged away from his smoke pipes and slovenly lifestyle, on his heroic brothers quest to save his bride-to-be Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) after she is kidnapped by the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux). Together with Thadeous' loyal aide Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker), this quest leads them through treacherous terrain, magical predicaments and eventually across the path of a loan warrior Isabel (Natalie Portman) who is on a quest of her own. Together, they must find and rescue Belladonna before the 2 moons align and before the evil wizard Leezar can penetrate her in order for her to give birth to a dragon in which he will control, thus fulfilling "The Fuckoning".
Seriously.. that's the story.
It's sounds so stupidly, head-shakingly hilarious written down... but things went a bit askew somewhere and the comedy didn't always translate that well from page to screen.
It is believed that the script was seldom seen on set, the actors and director favoring ad-libbing for the majority of the film, using a script merely for key points and referencing. This works on some movies.. SOME movies and even then, only really if the actors can effortlessly bounce off each other in certain and specific scenes which, despite the amount of acknowledged talent of some of the lead actors here, just didn't work as well as you would hope.
In a movie based on a storyline as ridiculous as the one outlined above, featuring a minotaur with a full-frontal erection scene and a character that I can only describe as a wise old, dope smoking pedophile turtle-fish thing with a glowing brain... you'd think this movie would fall into the classic random stoner comedy category but it's because it tries a little too hard to be something much more, that it finds itself in a category where it's a little too funny to be a full fledged action flick but not the right amount of funny to be a classic stoner flick.
"Your Highness" just didn't seem as laugh out loud funny as I thought it would be. I DID chuckle here and there but ultimately, I was pretty disappointed with the comedy.
In my opinion, the actor who seemed to be having the most fun and thus giving the best performance was Justin Theroux's evil wizard Leezar. Most of his lines were the ones that made me chuckle. Zooey Deschanel, as mentioned before, could've been played by a nobody and James Franco just phoned it in. I have nothing against Danny McBride but you can tell he is trying to get up there with the Seth Rogen/Jonah Hill brat pack.. and unfortunately, this one doesn't get him any closer. Although I will give an honorable mention to Natalie Portman's ass for it's all-too-brief cameo appearance. Actually probably the most memorable thing to come from this movie.
The saving grace for me was surprisingly the set design and visual effects. Those respective teams went above and beyond and created some really, very impressive sets and some awesome visuals that made this movie seem super epic.
It's just a shame that the effort put into making the movie look good eclipsed the effort that should've gone into making the movie actually BE good. Really it's just a shame that I just didn't find it that funny.
"Your Highness" journeys into cinemas TODAY and with the winter nights getting colder, it's not a terrible choice if you want to rug up and see a movie but it's definitely not the best choice either.
5/10
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