Pointing phallic objects at your enemy was the name of the game in Your Highness.
In a tale of two princes, Thadeous (Danny McBride) and Fabious (James Franco) were polar opposites until a naughty wizard stole Franco’s bride and so a raunchy sword and sorcery adventure began in Your Highness. As a companion piece to the Pineapple Express, Director David Gordon Green reunited with his boys and added the talents of Oscar winner Natalie Portman and Tobey Jones with cameos from Charles Dance and Zooey Deschanel. With more brand names than an Adam Sandler comedy, Your Highness had some potential to grow up as the love child of Men in Tights meets Monty Python. Alas my lords and ladies of the D20, this film never made its saving throw. However it had its moments with McBride basically running around with an implied “kick me” sign on his back and literally a Minotaur penis tied around his neck.
If you’re looking for top shelf, lowbrow humor Your Highness delivered more phallic jokes than any 3 Kevin Smith films combined in a tribute to fans of the Dragon lance novels. Unfortunately, it never chose a wise path from which to move the humor in a direction that anted up the laughs. Basically McBride was the butt of every joke in the film, many of which you could see coming from Fistandantalus’s tower. As a result, none of the talent received enough experience points from the dungeon master to level up because the jokes were never on anyone else. Like 3-day-old mead, every thing was exhausted by the second act.
Some of the strongest humor was subtle homage to the love of the Tolkien world. An apropos tongue in cheek homage to the Lord of the Rings films by utilizing cinematography worked as well as some of the recreations of familiar scenes. Green has a lot of love for the world of dungeons and dragons but the humor beats you over the head that it took you out of the loving fun and affection for his geeky roots.
If I had to rate Your Highness, I give it a pabst blue ribbon from the can. An old familiar friend that invokes good times but also a taste I can get tired of pretty quickly.
Cheers,
Ron
