“Your Highness” is the product of someone believing their own press and thinking they can do no wrong. The person in question would be actor Danny McBride, who co-wrote the screenplay with partner Ben Best and headlines in this fantasy/comedy that’s too much of one and not enough of the other.
McBride first received attention from his abrasive turn as a martial arts instructor in Jody Hill’s “The Foot Fist Way” back in 2006, and from that point forward he’s appeared in several different features essentially playing the same character over and over. As of late he’s received the most acclaim playing a foul mouth former baseball pitcher named Kenny Powers in HBO’s “East Bound And Down.”
Admittedly that series features some of the best writing on television and a pitch perfect performance by McBride as Powers, whose ability to deadpan some of the most offensive dialog ever written is an impressive (and often hysterical) feat to watch. He’s very good at it.
What he’s not very good at, however, is coming up with a consistently funny one hour and forty-two minute screenplay set in an 80’s styled fantasy world. Instead what we have is a film that’s inconsistent in tone, juvenile, and borderline (or outright) offensive.
Oh, and it’s not funny.
As FW Uncle Billy (still MIA along with the other Film Warriors) will attest, the worst thing you can make is a comedy with absolutely no laughs. Wherever McBride and Best got their pot from when they conjured up this mess must be some amazing shit. I wish I had some while watching it.
McBride plays Thadeous, dimwitted brother to the brave Fabious (James Franco) whose bride to be (Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped by an evil wizard (Justin Theroux) on the day of their wedding and spirited of to his evil castle to sacrifice her virginity to create a pet dragon in which to rule the land.
Thadeous joins his brother on his quest to rescue his bride against his will, and along way they’ll meet up with a female warrior (Natalie Portman) who eventually joins them in their crusade. As far as fantasy films of this type go, most of these off the shelf plot points you’ve already seen in countless other (and more entertaining) films.
However, this lazy sort of screenwriting framework exists only in which to hang their jokes, which would be fine if any of the material was actually funny, but as stated above, it’s not. McBride brought “Pineapple Express” director David Gordon Green aboard in the hope of achieving the same absurd, outrageous, and funny tone that quest item had here, but honestly, there are only so many dick and pot jokes to go around.
“Your Highness” is not so much outrageous as it is offensive, and not a funny offensive either. Much of the humor is lazy, overt, or forced, and most of the supporting cast look bored while delivering it. Had this film been released before this year’s Oscars, I’m certain that both Franco and Portman wouldn’t have even received nominations. They both look embarrassed to be on camera, and they should be.
The film is also unnecessarily graphic as limbs are ripped off and people are impaled on various pointy objects. Not very funny, and when your best joke involves a character wearing a Minotaur’s penis around his neck, you know you are in trouble.
Doesn’t anyone watch Mel Brooks’s films anymore?
They always say stick to what you know. Danny McBride should be less concerned about being God’s gift to comedy, leave the joke writing to others, and focus more on giving us a great performance in the third and final season of “East Bound And Down.”
“Deeds, not words…”
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