Movie Review: Your Highness

 

I’m going to start this review with a point of reference.  The Review for Your Highness on mania.com gave it a D-.  That would be a 1 out of 5 on my scale.  I think in all honesty that’s a bullcrap score.  I’ll explain as I go through the specifics of the movie. 

Your High…. ness is about two medieval princes going out on a quest to rescue the older brother, Fabious’ (James Franco) virginal shut in bride to be.  Thadious (Danny McBride aka Red from Pineapple Express) is his lazy stoner brother who reluctantly goes on said quest upon being threatened by his father to be banished from the kingdom if he refused.  They meet Natalie Portman’s warrior character later on and she joins them on their quest.

Now that the main plot is out of the way I’ll get into why I don’t agree with the D- mania.com gave it.  A lot of criticism was leveled at the special effects (it’s a comedy) and the humor.  The humor is completely subjective.  If you want Pineapple Express in the dark ages (though technically some alternate fantasy reality), then you’ll enjoy this movie for the most part.  I think that the criticisms of the penis and MJ jokes not being funny are unfair, I think the reviewer just doesn’t like sophomoric perverted humor like I and most of the people I know do.

Regardless I think it takes itself too seriously sometimes and should focus more on the strong points of the creative team, which is the jokes, humorous situations, and obvious innuendos to things other than the directly referenced content (key example, “I can’t suck my own venom” scene).  I think while trying to parody fantasy films, it tries a little too hard to be a legitimate one. The special effects critiques are a bit mute considering it’s not a serious movie.  I find the lower quality of magic effects and whatnot increase the hilarity of some sequences, but they’re not that bad.  I’ve seen worse in serious movies.

In the end, it’s an entertaining time, but Pineapple Express (which I love) is quite a bit better overall, but this is worth a watch if you’re into that type of humor.  I was laughing through most of the film, but it does have its relatively unentertaining stretches.

3 out of 5 fine wizard herbs