I always try not to read reviews of a film before I see it and get my own thoughts written down, but in this day and age of Twitter and whatnot it’s becoming increasingly difficult to shield yourself from other people’s reactions. As soon as something is released, or more accurately about a week before when studios start having screenings, all sorts of babble about what people thought starts assaulting you from all angles. Not having the luxury to see Your Highness until a couple of days after it was already released, I ended up experiencing it for the first time after already wading through a sea of negativity about how stupid it is. Nonetheless, I went into it trying to keep an open mind. And at the very beginning of the film I was getting a good vibe. I saw a sweeping landscape shot early on that was at least mostly model work, rather than a computer generated environment. It looked physical and real and like a refreshing change of pace from the modern cartoon backdrops of genre movies. And speaking of animation, after an opening vignette we go into an animated title sequence that I thought was well done. It had its own visual flair, seemed modeled after centuries old illustrations, and showed that a good deal of thought and artistry was going into this movie. Suddenly I was feeling a lot better about what I was watching. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a struggle to withhold judgment and give it a chance. But after that title sequence ended, it didn’t take long before the realization that Your Highness really is as stupid and humorless as everyone said set in.
The biggest hurdle placed in front of this movie becoming a success is its script. I’m not going to do any plot summary because it’s not really necessary. A couple of brothers go on an epic, fantasy film quest full of maidens and monsters and swords, and that’s about it. You don’t need the specifics. But what I do want to talk about is the lack of comedy in the film. There were long stretches here where I was consciously trying to pick out points where it was even trying to be funny. The whole thing has a stupid, irreverent tone that would undercut any sort of serious attempt at being a legitimate adventure film; but the gags are so scarce that I was hard pressed to figure out what screenwriters Danny McBride and Ben Best were thinking. Then I remembered their first film, The Foot Fist Way, and my lukewarm reaction to it, and suddenly things started to make sense. The Foot Fist Way seemed to be a film that existed as a concept alone, and then McBride and company just decided that they would fill in the rest with improvisation later. Your Highness seems to be a film that had little more thought put into its concept than being a movie where fantasy film characters say the F word and talk about raunchy sex a lot. The problem, perhaps, is that in a film full of special effects and elaborate production design, the opportunity for filling things out with improvisation is greatly lessened. My confusion is made even greater though, because I really enjoy their work together on Eastbound and Down. Every episode of that show is so packed full of hilarity that it doesn’t seem possible that this comedically barren film can be from the same people. Perhaps it’s a case of the long form storytelling of a TV show being better suited to their talents. With less pressure on them to tell a complete story in a condensed chunk of time, they seem to go crazier with the comedy. To me it feels like they paid too much attention making sure that Your Highness worked as a real quest film, and hit all the right structural moments to be considered a real movie, that they forgot to add in the jokes. I would have much rather seen them go completely insane with the comedy and not worry so much about making something coherent.
The other aspects of Your Highness, other than the failed comedy, are a mixed bag. The performances are a disappointment across the board. It’s not long before you realize that McBride is just coasting on his nihilist persona. Franco is inconsistent from scene to scene. Sometimes his language is floral and his pronunciation exaggerated and ridiculous, sometimes he’s just cheesing, and others he seems to be sleep walking. Portman doesn’t do anything but run through her lines and every once in a while try to throw in some sort of half-realized accent to let us know that we’re watching a fantasy movie. But, conversely, the photography and the production design is all really impressive. I’m not one to know things about film stock or processing techniques or what have you, but what I can tell you is that the colors in this film were so vivid they popped off of the screen. Much of the photography, especially during the landscape scenes, was impressively beautiful. The images of Your Highness are lush and alive. The towns and villages that they pass through were amazingly realized. Towards the end of the film they enter a medieval city that seemed far too epically presented for a comedy with a script this stupid. Sometimes I forget that David Gordon Green was a legitimate director of art films before he started making these last couple comedies. While I’m far less impressed with where his work has gone in relation to where his work has been, he always at least makes his movies look good.
The action and the sex appeal also try to save this one from going in the toilet. The advertising campaign centered largely on a gratuitous shot of Natalie Portman’s butt. Well the butt scene is included as advertised, and the second and a half of Portman tush up on the big screen is nearly worth the price of admission alone. I mean, damn Natalie. Damn. In addition to this, there’s a ridiculous scene where a muddy crew of topless women takes the protagonists captive, and it effectively titillates. Franco and McBride are taken to a gladiator pit where a creepy bulbous guy with goofy hair makes them fight things while he and his topless harem look on. The whole thing has a live action Heavy Metal thing going on that’s kind of cool. There’s also a scene where a bunch of running and jumping is done on a runaway carriage that I kind of enjoyed. It doesn’t come anywhere near the tank scene from The Last Crusade, but the effort is appreciated. The scene is edited a little too choppily to cover for the lack of any real intricate choreography or super thrilling stunt work, but it’s easily followed and conceptually fun. My only real complaint about the action and adventure in the film is all of the CG blood. I hate CG blood. And there’s a lot of it here. People are impaled, they have their limbs cut off, they’re squished, and blood flies everywhere; but it’s all stupid looking computer blood. Probably I could have given this movie another star if it had included some old fashioned, practical effects gore. Who started this computer gore thing? How much does latex for fake skin and a bucket of corn syrup for fake blood cost? CG is easier? Really?
In the end, Your Highness ended up working much better as an action film than it did as a comedy. If it would have jettisoned the immature wiener and vagina jokes and all of the foul language and concentrated instead on being a straightforward adventure movie it probably would have been a solid enough film. But instead it wastes far too much energy crafting a filthy, comedic tone that is devoid of nearly any real jokes, clever quips, or whatever else might actually make an audience laugh. And largely that focus on being ridiculous and dirty is what kills the comedy. Everybody is playing their characters with a smirk on their face. Nobody is making any effort to get in character or be naturalistic in their delivery. What you get seems to very clearly be a case of a bunch of friends hanging around on a movie set and having a good time. That’s good for them, but it isn’t funny. Comedy comes from sincerity. What’s funny is taking a ridiculous situation and playing it straight. Taking yourself way too seriously and giving an awesome dramatic performance while having a severed Minotaur penis hanging around your neck is funny. Grinning and giggling your way through a farce isn’t; it’s tedious. And if a comedy is tedious, it becomes too hard for any other positive aspect of the film to make up for that failure.
