No so High ness

Everything about Your Highness should have led me to like it.

I like Danny McBride, especially in Eastbound and Down, a role he is effectively mirroring here. I like James Franco, even though I do find his weird speech impediment thing slightly irritating, and he proved his comedy worth in Pineapple Express. I like Natalie Portman, and again, anyone who has seen the Lonely Island SNL digital short Natalie’s Rap knows she can do comedy. However, despite all of these ingredients the film suffers from the fact that it’s not actually very funny.

McBride plays a not-so-loveable loser of a prince, who’s second in line to the throne and spends all of his time getting high and seducing dwarf princesses whilst his brother (Franco) is off on perilous and heroic quests. Then, when Franco’s fiancée (the oddly attractive Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped on their wedding day, McBride is forced to join Franco on a mission to save her, on the way joining forces with Natalie Portman, a feisty warrior on a quest of her own.

It’s not especially funny, which is a big problem for a comedy, with several jokes drawn out much longer than they should have been (the minotaur’s penis being the prime example). The film’s plotting isn’t up to scratch – McBride seems to go from cowardly stoner to hero a little too quickly for my taste. There are a couple of good supporting turns – Charles Dance plays a friendlier version of his character from Game of Thrones, and Damien Lewis, who I haven’t seen in anything since Life (which shouldn’t have been cancelled), gives good support as Franco’s wingman-turned-adversary.

Unfortunately, a film which doesn’t live up to the potential of its cast or concept. Which is a shame, as it could have been so much more.