Posts tagged Your Highness

(“Your Lowbrowness”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Your Highness looks like a stoner comedy, walks like a stoner comedy, and quacks like a stoner comedy, but the only way that audiences would laugh while watching this mess of a movie would be if they actually were on drugs.

Sure, James Franco is listed in the credits, but I am more inclined to believe that it is his evil twin, Frank Jameso, who is in this failure of a film. You know, the one who hosted the Academy Awards in 2011.

In fact, Franco doesn’t even get top billing in the credits. That dishonor goes to Danny McBride, who also wrote the movie and not so coincidentally gave himself the bigger role.

And rounding out this trio of turpitude is Natalie Portman, whose two distinguishing characteristics in this film are reminders of what she lost in order to make her next film, the excellent 2010 Black Swan.

But I procrastinate.

The story begins with a mildly amusing sight gag of a hanging that fails to succeed because the hangers are little people and they forgot to adjust the gallows for the height of the normal-sized hangee.

He is Prince Thadeous of the Kingdom of Mourn, played by McBride, younger and less accomplished brother of Prince Fabious, played by Franco–I mean, by the evil twin Jameso.

In fact, Thadeous is so weak that when he eventually expresses his overpowering obsession, it comes out only as the tepid, “It would be nice to be king.”

The main plot is that Belladonna, the bride-to-be of Prince Fabious and who is played by Zooey Deschanel, is captured by an evil wizard, and so Prince Fabious goes on another quest to rescue her, this time taking his stumbling, bumbling brother, Prince Thadeous, along with him, which is the second prince’s first quest.

Along the way they encounter Isabel, played by Portman, who is on her own quest. And so they join forces.

In other words, this is a sword and sorcery spoof.

However, mostly it is a waste of time that is lowbrow, knuckle dragging, tasteless, overblown, too over the top and too gross. No, make that three over the top and three gross and therefore four tedious and five unfunny.

Your Highness could even be called “Your Lowbrowness,” but then that would give it more credit than it deserves.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”