Now that Your Highness has hit theaters, you can rest assured there is a funny, raunchy medieval comedy out there for you to enjoy. It’s called Robin Hood: Men In Tights and it came out in 1993. However, if you like wacky violence, topless ladies and production values so cheap it makes your high school gym look like the set of Gone With The Wind, then sit down while I spin you the tale of Your Highness.
Danny McBride plays slovenly, horny Prince Thadeous, who spends his day porking the wife of the dwarf king and smoking bowl after bowl of the kingdom’s finest. From the first f-bomb dropped in a high English accent, McBride is basically Eastbound and Down‘s Kenny Powers; they didn’t even bother to give him a new haircut. While this might have been a clever way to reel in moviegoers familiar with his foul-mouth ball player, it wasn’t the best way to, you know, make a film that wasn’t terrible.
[Warning - spoilers below the jump!]
When not plowing the local maidens, Thadeous mopes around his father’s kingdom and envies his brother, the smoking-hot Prince Fabious, portrayed by James Franco in his finest performance since the 2011 Oscars. While there is definitely comedy to be had mixing filthy mouths, dick jokes and enchanted forests, smirky, stilted Franco and perverted McBride make for an incredibly low energy duo, a huge misstep in a film that is big on action, low on comedy.
Fresh from slaying ogres, Fabious had returned with the beautiful Princess Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel at her most wide-eyed and busty). With her Little Mermaid-like naivety (forks do sort of look like combs!) and natural charisma, Deschanel is one of the bright spots of the film. So too is evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), preening under a blanket of eyeliner before snatching up Belladonna to be his dragon-birthing bride. The loudest laugh of the night came during an argument about his plan to consummate their relationship as part of an ancient prophecy. Being just as ignorant as Belladonna about sex, Leezar declares, “If your vagina is anything like my hand, then there will not be any problems.” Sadly neither the princess nor the villain is the focus of the film, and so we must quest on.
The princes set out to rescue Fabious’ love…and, of course, it all goes really wrong, really quickly. Their first stop is with the old wise wizard, a creature who looks like a disgusting cross between Yoda, a catfish and a purple snow globe. The wizard smokes the ganj to see visions, but will only share his omens if the brothers kiss him on the mouth…which they do. It is awful. While Fabious manages to wrangle a magic compass leading them to a unicorn sword that can defeat Leezar, Thadeous is more concerned about the signs pointing to the fact that the wise wizard has been molesting Fabious since he was a child.
“Wow, that’s as terrible as the movie must get,” you might be thinking. You could not be more wrong. Before the brothers can journey on, they have to give the wizard a hand-job…which they do. It is as unspeakably terrible as you would imagine. The audience literally groaned in horror as the two brothers reach toward the creature’s lap. If you’re laughing as you read this, beware: the retelling of this tale is far funnier then the actual film, the creepy puppet far less gag-inducing.
The gents soon meet up with the Isabel (Natalie Portman), a steely warrior who probably regrets showing her whole butt on-camera in such a flop. Maybe Portman can put her Oscar right in front of the TV to hide her shame? Isabel’s stoicism (and lack of good dialogue) combined with the gory action sequences that take up most of the middle half of the film highlight the real problem with Your Highness: the movie is actually a fantasy action film sprinkled with jokes, not a comedy sprinkled with fantasy action sequences. Sure, watching Danny McBride wearing a severed Minotaur wiener as a necklace is an amazing sight gag…if we didn’t have to sit through 35 minutes of by-the-book swordplay to see it. Unfortunately for anyone who had high hopes following 2006’s The Foot Fist Way, McBride just doesn’t make a satisfying medieval action hero nor a believable romantic companion to Natalie Effin’ Portman. As for Franco…well, Franco looks like he’s struggling just to keep his eyes open. We wouldn’t have been surprised if the camera pulled back to find him munching on some Fritos. That would have been a joke at least.
It goes without saying that the princes save the day and rescued the unsullied princess from the wizard’s clutches. However, if you still don’t believe that the film can be all that bad, open your mind to this reality: at the exact moment Isabel and Fabious finally slip out of their chain mail to make some magic of their own, she pulls aside her gown to reveal…that she is wearing an iron chastity belt. That’s right: the same exact gag from Robin Hood: Men In Tights. Take a trip to your Netflix queue and save yourself $12.00. Besides, all you get to see of Portman’s behind is already in the trailer.
