Review: Your Highness

Is there any director around with a career arc as unexpected and fascinating as David Gordon Green? The 36-year-old auteur began his career with works of beautiful poetic expression. Films like George Washington, All the Real Girls and Undertown all prompted comparisons to the works of Terrence Malick, with Malick even producing Undertow. Those films announced the arrival of a major new talent, someone with deft command of a camera and a poet’s soul. And then something unexpected happened. Green made a movie in one of the least illustrious genres: the stoner comedy. The result was Pineapple Express, a film that demonstrated that David Gordon Green could play in the comedic sandbox with the best of them, delivering a weed/buddy comedy that ranks with the very best of them.

And now, nearly three years later, we have Your Highness. When it was originally announced the project sounded way too bizarre and esoteric to ever make it through the studio system. A big budget homage to 80’s sword and sorcery flicks like Krull and Conan the Destroyer mixed with a stoner comedy? The fact that it was made at all seemed a beautiful accident, a case of someone getting to realize their strangest inside joke on 2000+ screens, demographics and focus testing be damned! Being a big fan of David Gordon Green, as well as of co-writer and star Danny McBride, I expected something that was nothing short of amazing.

What I got was…something else entirely. Don’t get me wrong, the film is funny. Very funny I’d say. But Your Highness sometimes doesn’t seem like it’s going for big laughs. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s going for laughs at all. Rather, the film seems to be attempting to be a legitimate entry into that fantasy genre that it seemed, from the previews at least, to be sending up.

Thadeous (Danny McBride) is the ne’er-do-well prince of a magical kingdom. He is the black sheep son of the King (Charles Dance), content to smoke weed and covet dwarf women with his manservant Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker) while his dashing older brother Fabious (James Franco) gets all the glory. When Fabious’ new bride to be Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) is snatched by the evil wizard Leezar, the two brothers set out on a mighty quest to vanquish Leezar (Justin Theroux) and save the virgin maiden before she can be deflowered. Along the way they run into a Wise Wizard (who resembles a purple Yoda, if Yoda was a pederast), a fearsome Minotaur and a vengeful (and possibly psychotic) warrior woman, Isabel (Natalie Portman, clearly having fun with all this nonsense).

It’s odd to read in other pieces written about the film that it is a satire or a spoof of the genre; it’s really not. It plays many of the fantasy elements surprisingly straight, with goofy effects, strange creatures (primarily realized through practical effects) and a heroic yet nonsensical quest. The comedy comes more from the disparity in seeing Danny McBride’s usual comedic persona inserted, bad English accent and all, into this fantasy setting. Thus he runs around reacting to things like a Minotaur and a five headed snake monsters in the same manner that Kenny Powers might react to them. Aside from a few visual gags and assorted scatological and weed jokes, it's about the only source of humor in the film. It’s funny as far as it goes (McBride could eat an apple on film and I’d probably laugh my ass off), but it’s odd how content the film is to stay in one mode of comedy.

The rest of the cast is game, although not given terribly much to do. James Franco inhabits the straight man role admirably, adding some charm as the somewhat vapid, but noble warrior. His dynamic with Danny McBride, while standard within modern, Apatow-infused comedy, adds a slight but effective injection of emotion to the proceedings. Justin Theroux is a highlight as Leezar, attacking every line with slimy abandon. He’s easily one of the funniest parts of the film. Natalie Portman in a small role, appears to be having a ball playing in a comedy this offbeat and unconventional. Zooey Deschanel doesn’t really register as her character is a device more than anything else. Special mention must be made, however, of Rasmus Hardiker’s Courtney, who steals the film right out from under McBride and Franco on several occasions. As the put upon manservant, his facial expressions alone make the experience worthwhile.

What strikes me most about Your Highness is how resolutely weird the whole thing is. I went into the film with a certain set of expectations, and I can safely say that those expectations were not met. What I did receive, however, was something that I’m glad to have seen, and will most likely see again in the near future. It’s not every film that can feature swordplay and weed jokes, a straight faced adventure story with copious amounts of swearing and minotaur penis (yes, minotaur penis). The film that it most resembles, to me, is 2009’s Land of the Lost. That film (which also featured Danny McBride in a pivotal role) alienated critics and audiences with its dumb humor bolstering a story that retained a perverse fidelity to its source material. Like that film, I understand that not everyone will be on board with it, but the critical vitriol aimed its way is a little puzzling.

There has been much hand-wringing and nay saying from many mainstream critics this past week about how David Gordon Green has supposedly been led astray. It remains utterly fascinating how this director, so adept at evoking the sacred, can turn on a dime and produce something so resolutely profane. Unlike others, however, this development doesn’t cause me to despair. From the looks of it the man is making exactly the kinds of films that he wants to make, and if his creative muse is leading him to such exceedingly odd places as this then so be it. This might not be the film that many were expecting, but it’s off-kilter fantasy quest mixed with cheerfully lowbrow humor is an adventure not without its own unique charm.