YOUR HIGHNESS review - A bad trip
(Reviewed by Melody Werner)
Your Highness is a 2011 fantasy stoner comedy directed by David Gordon Green. It stars Danny McBride (who also cowrote with Ben Best), James Franco, Natalie Portman, Justin Theroux, and Zooey Deschanel. Released by Universal, it was met with massive critical and commercial failure, being considered one of the biggest blockbuster flops of its year. Being me, though, this did not deter me--I've made clear time, and time, and time again that I have a weird taste and have a greater propensity for rooting on "the little guys" (even if no Hollywood film like this is of course ever truly "little"). That said, I'm not a contrarian and don't come in looking to trash whatever the conventional opinion on a piece of art is. Case in point, I'm going to have to agree with the consensus and say that Your Highness is boring trash.
Being a 2011 film, there is a certain level of expectation when it comes to the visuals--one that is neither as high as a more modern film (obviously), but not as low as something from the 90's. With YH, you have something which careens from looking pretty nice for its time to abject horror, then to and fro. It's wildly uneven--which at least is more than can be said of the rest of the film which hovers firmly around the "Why the fuck am I wasting my time watching this?" territory. Luckily, the opening credits are well polished, but unlike a certain other dogshit blockbuster I reviewed recently, this is at least not the film's strongest point. The wardrobe is also pretty decent, even if it's never particularly mindblowing or iconic. Steve Jablonsky, of the Bayformers films, provides the musical score here, and it is utterly baffling. The music itself isn't bad, per se, but it makes no sense tonally. Which is usually the point of a cinematic score--to heighten the tone. Sure, I wouldn't mind listening to the OST on its own, but it never helps the film; it actively adds to the confusion on why anyone thought this was going to be enjoyed.
You probably weren't expecting me to dive into the narrative failings of Your Highness, but fuck it, the movie's not funny, so I'm going to do what ought to have been done with it on day one: ask you to gather 'round, gather 'round and witness something truly ugly. Okay, so even on a technical writing level, this fails in every way imaginable. Despite cribbing wholesale from the hero's journey (what is now a template on how to write formulaically satisfying adventures), it is done so listlessly and amateurishly that it falls completely on its face. The main character does not have an arc. He's a giant asshole up 'til he stumbles onto a magic sword, gets a stern talking to by a sentient maze, and then we are told he is now an honest™ and good™ warrior--yet his behavior does not change at all, he can just fight now. Stupid. And don't get me started on the absolutely backwards, asinine, and laughable attempt at romance. But it fares even worse, I would posit, on a thematic level. Your Highness is brave in its decision to be a fairly recent film that makes the most gormless argument in favor of elites, monarchy, and slavery. No, really--this movie has one of the villains be the former slave of the royalty, who is evil because he... he... doesn't want to be a slave. Good god. So. Fucking. Stupid.
As a comedy, one would expect, y'know, comedy. Well, Your Highness has decided to be innovative and go for the "zero comedy comedy" shtick, with great aplomb. I didn't laugh once at this film. Not a once. Instead, every joke just made me either cringe, feel dead inside, or contemplate arson. Mmmm, Universal Studios burning... sorry, where was I? Ah, yes. Where other comedies would have sharp as a whip dialogue and outlandish performances, Your Highness says, "Nah, I got something better. Rape jokes." See, Your Highness thinks that rape is really funny. There are a bunch of cringy jokes where the whole set-up and/or punchline is "Lol, rape xd." Yuck. You would think there'd be more goofy, harmless drug jokes, but nah. Just the most superficial, bigoted parodying of fantasy tropes with nothing interesting to say. It's actively contemptuous.
So what is there to like in Your Highness? 1) Natalie Portman. Oh, not her character or her performance. The character is badly written, only being used as a piece of ass (hint: this seems to be the main reason anyone cares about the film, going by the stills) and as a token woman. And try as she might, Natalie cannot turn this garbáge script into something workable. I'm just glad to see that she got a nice paycheck out of this, because she's pretty cool. 2) The name. Yeah, the most skin deep aspect of it, but it's a great name. Stick a good enough movie to it, and you have something to be put up next to things like Back to the Future and It's a Wonderful Life as classics with all time memorable names. I'd just like to see that movie now, though.
Your Highness feels like an elaborate prank on me. No way someone wasted a name like that on something this terrible, I sometimes think to myself at night. It keeps me up, wondering what kind of monsters greenlit this and didn't save the name for something of its caliber. And that's why I'm giving Your Highness a 4/10.
Lame
Summary:
If a comedy doesn't make you laugh, does that make it a tragedy?
Your Highness is a 2011 fantasy stoner comedy directed by David Gordon Green. It stars Danny McBride (who also cowrote with Ben Best), James Franco, Natalie Portman, Justin Theroux, and Zooey Deschanel. Released by Universal, it was met with massive critical and commercial failure, being considered one of the biggest blockbuster flops of its year. Being me, though, this did not deter me--I've made clear time, and time, and time again that I have a weird taste and have a greater propensity for rooting on "the little guys" (even if no Hollywood film like this is of course ever truly "little"). That said, I'm not a contrarian and don't come in looking to trash whatever the conventional opinion on a piece of art is. Case in point, I'm going to have to agree with the consensus and say that Your Highness is boring trash.
Being a 2011 film, there is a certain level of expectation when it comes to the visuals--one that is neither as high as a more modern film (obviously), but not as low as something from the 90's. With YH, you have something which careens from looking pretty nice for its time to abject horror, then to and fro. It's wildly uneven--which at least is more than can be said of the rest of the film which hovers firmly around the "Why the fuck am I wasting my time watching this?" territory. Luckily, the opening credits are well polished, but unlike a certain other dogshit blockbuster I reviewed recently, this is at least not the film's strongest point. The wardrobe is also pretty decent, even if it's never particularly mindblowing or iconic. Steve Jablonsky, of the Bayformers films, provides the musical score here, and it is utterly baffling. The music itself isn't bad, per se, but it makes no sense tonally. Which is usually the point of a cinematic score--to heighten the tone. Sure, I wouldn't mind listening to the OST on its own, but it never helps the film; it actively adds to the confusion on why anyone thought this was going to be enjoyed.
You probably weren't expecting me to dive into the narrative failings of Your Highness, but fuck it, the movie's not funny, so I'm going to do what ought to have been done with it on day one: ask you to gather 'round, gather 'round and witness something truly ugly. Okay, so even on a technical writing level, this fails in every way imaginable. Despite cribbing wholesale from the hero's journey (what is now a template on how to write formulaically satisfying adventures), it is done so listlessly and amateurishly that it falls completely on its face. The main character does not have an arc. He's a giant asshole up 'til he stumbles onto a magic sword, gets a stern talking to by a sentient maze, and then we are told he is now an honest™ and good™ warrior--yet his behavior does not change at all, he can just fight now. Stupid. And don't get me started on the absolutely backwards, asinine, and laughable attempt at romance. But it fares even worse, I would posit, on a thematic level. Your Highness is brave in its decision to be a fairly recent film that makes the most gormless argument in favor of elites, monarchy, and slavery. No, really--this movie has one of the villains be the former slave of the royalty, who is evil because he... he... doesn't want to be a slave. Good god. So. Fucking. Stupid.
As a comedy, one would expect, y'know, comedy. Well, Your Highness has decided to be innovative and go for the "zero comedy comedy" shtick, with great aplomb. I didn't laugh once at this film. Not a once. Instead, every joke just made me either cringe, feel dead inside, or contemplate arson. Mmmm, Universal Studios burning... sorry, where was I? Ah, yes. Where other comedies would have sharp as a whip dialogue and outlandish performances, Your Highness says, "Nah, I got something better. Rape jokes." See, Your Highness thinks that rape is really funny. There are a bunch of cringy jokes where the whole set-up and/or punchline is "Lol, rape xd." Yuck. You would think there'd be more goofy, harmless drug jokes, but nah. Just the most superficial, bigoted parodying of fantasy tropes with nothing interesting to say. It's actively contemptuous.
So what is there to like in Your Highness? 1) Natalie Portman. Oh, not her character or her performance. The character is badly written, only being used as a piece of ass (hint: this seems to be the main reason anyone cares about the film, going by the stills) and as a token woman. And try as she might, Natalie cannot turn this garbáge script into something workable. I'm just glad to see that she got a nice paycheck out of this, because she's pretty cool. 2) The name. Yeah, the most skin deep aspect of it, but it's a great name. Stick a good enough movie to it, and you have something to be put up next to things like Back to the Future and It's a Wonderful Life as classics with all time memorable names. I'd just like to see that movie now, though.
Your Highness feels like an elaborate prank on me. No way someone wasted a name like that on something this terrible, I sometimes think to myself at night. It keeps me up, wondering what kind of monsters greenlit this and didn't save the name for something of its caliber. And that's why I'm giving Your Highness a 4/10.
Lame
Summary:
If a comedy doesn't make you laugh, does that make it a tragedy?
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