Votre Majesté

I watched this on DVD last night, shamefully because of what i had heard around the time of its cinema release. Well that taught me a lesson.

The only accountable reason i can arrive at for all the negative feedback i heard from critics and the public is that i feel they were expecting something a little more Holy Grail, because of the setting and the English accents and instead i felt this is more Blazing Saddles, very un-pc, whilst gently goosing (oo-er) its chosen genre.

It is immature and crude, but the laughs were consistent enough, its a comedy notion which would usually have a B grade budget, but has somehow been made with an A grade budget and for me that was part of its charm. Its like the slackers broke into the set of Lord of the Rings and mucked about all weekend and managed to film it.

Maybe i did the right thing in retrospect, sometimes its better to watch something after the dust has settled, just watch this cold and i'll bet you'd enjoy it. In years to come i think this film will have quite a loyal following, across a certain demographic, including me.

I have just seen this at a preview screening in London.

I'm not actually a fan of low brow humour but I found myself laughing and chuckling throughout this filthy mouthed, very gory, medieval sword and sorcery fantasy comedy. Its mainly because the cast is very likable with its main leads resonating off each other in this pool of silliness which makes the film highly entertaining. While James Franco and Danny McBride provides the laughter and brotherly banter, Natalie Portman strides in with stunning gravitas as a deceptive sexy swashbuckling heroine.

The storyline is a simple action adventure journey to save a damsel in distress from a warlord. But this not a naked gun style comedy, rather a humorous homage to classic fantasy movies such as Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, Princess Bride etc. What's surprising is that the adventure is rather genuine and exciting with a huge dose of special effects that a comedy shouldn't really be allowed to have. I believe the film was given a normal comedy level budget but they certainly seem to have made clever use of it with some impressive special effects.

Yes there is much sexual jokes and innuendos and a heavy reliance on uncharacteristic medieval expletive adjectives to force a laugh but the charm of the characters makes them get away with it.

Having said all of the above, there were clearly some pacing issues and missed opportunities for this to be an even funnier and smarter movie but as it is, it offers plenty of entertainment, fun and laughs for a Friday/Saturday evening at the cinema.

They say that there is no such thing as a bad idea for a movie, just bad executions of ideas. I was open to the idea behind "Your Highness" - after all the spin on this sword and sorcery world - mixing stoner and frat boy humor into this pot is an original one. All I was asking that the movie be funny doing this. Sadly, the movie isn't that funny at all. Stoner and frat boy humor can be funny, but all this dumb humor has to be executed with some intelligence to work. But the filmmakers of this movie seem to be thinking at the level of a brain-dead adolescent. The movie thinks that simply spouting off curse words is hilarious, but it simply isn't. The actors do their best, but the low-level mentality of the entire enterprise ultimately sinks the movie. The best I can say for this failure is that it is seldom boring. Stupid and intelligence-insulting, yes. But not boring.

This movie was made to make you laugh and that is exactly what it does. No real depth or signifigant underlying message to speak of, just a lot of raunchy humor to split your sides. I laughed the whole way through the movie and you will too if you have at least one funny bone in your body. There is so much filthy humor in this movie that is in no way suitable for children, but hey we adults need some idiocracy of our own every now and then and that is exactly what this movie brings to the table. Purely brilliant idiocracy. The best kind there is. It has a great cast and Danny McBride is hilarious as usual. Definitely worth watching. Be forewarned, it is DIRTY!!!

...this film was a whole lot of fun. It is a fantastic spoof of all those usually pretty bad sword and sorcery movies that came out after Conan the Barbarian and Excalibur were huge hits. It also is a satire of the over-the-top vulgarity of many early 80s comedy hits, and it even takes it up a notch.

To borrow from Rob Reiner/Christopher Guest, they took all these elements and turned them up to 11. This film is about excess and it pulls it off fantastically. It's meant to be a genre-busting stoner movie, and, yes, it's sexist, but this is a *satire*, a point I think a lot of viewers and even more critics missed.

I just watched this now, 7 years later, because I was turned away from it by all the horrible reviews and I'm very grateful I was bored today and gave it a try. Watch it with a bud (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), you will *not* be disappointed. I think we need more films like this that take risks and push boundaries like Animal House and the Blues Brothers as two very apt examples did back in the day.

The comedic genre is increasingly mixed with dramatic content, and even comedies that do well at the box-office don't rate well it seems (a 6.5 on IMDB is fantastic rating for a comedy in my experience, which goes to show how stale a genre can get when it rests on its laurels, and for comedy especially, which at it's core is about pushing boundaries and taking chances, and has been since Duck Soup, Modern Times, etc.).

And good for David Gordon Green to make a movie that he felt like making, one he and I'm sure his friends would enjoy. It looks like it would be a blast making this movie, too. I love his more serious films like Joe, All The Real Girls, Undertow, Snow Angels, etc., mostly dramatic pieces that received critical acclaim. It makes me respect him all the more by moving to comedy when he feels like it like with this film and Pineapple Express; I think is part of the reason why he's one of my favourite directors, one where everyone of his films I've really enjoyed. I always hope that he gets his due credit someday if for no other reason than to lead viewers to some of his lesser known gems, or ones that were unfairly panned by critics who didn't seem to think about what he was trying to achieve, like with Your Highness.