Movie Review: Your Highness

When I first heard about Your Highness, I instantly became very excited about it. The idea of a medieval comedy starring Danny McBride, James Franco, and a lot of other talented people being directed by David Gordon Green sounded like a comedy gold mine. While Your Highness did not quite live up to my expectations, it's still pretty funny.

Your Highness centers around brothers Thadeous (Danny McBride) and Fabious (James Franco). Fabious is a decorated hero who gets all the attention for the many heroic quests he has completed, whereas Thadeous is a lazy goofball who is envious of his brother’s deeds and fame. Thadeous finally gets a chance at glory when Fabious's bride to be, Belladonna (Zooey Deshchanel), is kidnapped by evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux). Thadeous teams with up Fabious and his men to engage on this very important quest to save his brother's bride… and perhaps finally gain respect from his kingdom.

Your Highness is a pretty amusing film, though it gets out of the get a little rough.  There was very little that was funny in the first half hour, as most of the jokes just came up short.  Thankfully, once the “quest” gets going, the humor really starts to pick up.  Be warned:  the humor in this film is really, really stupid. There is a barrage of immature penis jokes and other jokes of that nature. At first they didn't really stick, but they got progressively funnier throughout the film, and Danny McBride is the main reason Your Highness works, as his character is responsible for a large majority of the laughs.  When you consider that much of the film's dialogue was entirely improvised, it proves how funny McBride can be on the fly.

What really prevents this film of being great, unfortunately, is the rest of the cast. The jokes coming from James Franco, Natalie Portman and others were mostly misses, and it's a shame considering how great they are as actors. They have proved themselves to be versatile and they have done comedy quite well in the past, but here they don’t seem comfortable with the material.

On the whole, Your Highness is a pretty solid comedy. The humor is really sophomoric, but it begins to click in the middle of the film after a rough start. Danny McBride is such a comic force that he carries the bulk of the comic load with ease and is solely responsible for the comedic success of this film. Your Highness could have been a lot better, but it's still a pretty amusing film.

3.5/5 Stars