What do you get when you mingle the sophomoric, self-deprecating, and sometimes tasteless humor of Danny McBride with a 1980s sword & sorcery epic? Well, you sort of get an action adventure film, Your Highness, with a lot of R-rated material that is never quite as funny as it could or should be, while being more action-packed and epic than it has any right to be.
Prince Fabious (James Franco) is the darling of the kingdom, having slain numerous foes, accomplished many great and noble quests. He now plans to marry the fair maiden Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), whom he has recently rescued from the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux). Prince Thadeous (Danny McBride) is a lout who has accomplished little more than sleep with as many women as he can (including the queen of the dwarves, as seen in an amusing pre-credit sequence) and getting high along with his faithful manservant Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker). Jealous of his more successful brother, Thadeous skips out on the wedding ceremony … right as Leezar shows up to recover Belladonna, whom he plans to … “use” in order to bring a powerful dragon into the world. When Thadeous returns, the King (Charles Dance) orders him to go with his brother on the quest to recover Belladonna and finally become a man.
What sounds on paper like a chance for McBride to play the lout in a never-ending series of goofy road adventures actually pushes the comedy to the back burner in order to showcase what is apparently a great love for films like Dragonslayer and Willow, as there’s actually a great deal of fantasy action in the film … more so than I actually expected. There’s a labyrinth with a minotaur, a cage match between the heroes and a gigantic five-headed monster, a carriage chase, and a lightning bolt-filled finale that takes itself far more seriously than you might have been led to expect (and a surprising amount of practical effects in this age of CG, which is admirable). Most of the comedy is reserved for a handful of really big gags (most of which do work) or the characters randomly swearing from time to time (which doesn’t work quite as much as the actors seem to think it does). Half the time, it’s almost as if the script was written by a handful of 13-year-olds, thinking that just using foul language and showing people getting high is the pinnacle of comedy. To be fair, playing an idiot manchild is exactly the kind of thing McBride loves to do, but it clashes terribly with the truly funny (albeit incredibly raunchy) bits that do crop up in Your Highness. To avoid spoiling too much, let’s just say that, as writer, McBride knows that sometimes the funniest thing is not the prop itself, but that you realize that it’s been onscreen for the past ten minutes or so.
That being said, the action portions are actually quite good (if filmed in the close-up/quick-cut style that everyone seems to love these days), and the film turns out to be much more of an ensemble piece than it first seems. Though Natalie Portman doesn’t even show up in the movie until about the halfway point, she still gets plenty of screen time (and possibly one of the better lines of the movie as she describes the anguish of her backstory), as do Toby Jones as the inappropriately named court advisor Julie and Hardiker doing his best as the always eager sidekick. Theroux steals the show whenever the action switches to him, particularly his “feast” scene in which he treats his captive and three mothers to a grand meal of fish sticks and mashed potatoes. The only ones who don’t have a whole lot to do are Deschanel and Dance, who are pretty much there in order to get the quest going in the first place. The three leads play well off of each other, Franco getting to play the hero nicely without drifting into the easily clichéd “pretty but stupid” territory, McBride reveling in smarm, and Portman doing nicely as the most competent hero of them all, if perhaps a little too bloodthirsty.
In the end, Your Highness is entertaining enough, with a decent helping of bloodshed and laughs, but unfortunately the action/comedy blend this time around isn’t quite as seamless as it was for director David Gordon Green’s Pineapple Express. It’s not terrible, but it just felt like it had the potential to be much cleverer than it is. McBride fans will still find much to like here, lovers of old fantasy films may as well; but it’s certainly not for everyone.
Seth Paul
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