Your Highness

Danny McBride wrote a script tailored to himself, invited some of his buddies from Pineapple Express along for the ride... and yet again, it for the most part didn't turn out well. Though I wasn't suffering too much this time, the humor aims solely at sexual innuendos, which can get boring relatively quickly on a hundred-minute running time. And that simplicity is a terrible shame, because the cinematography is actually well done, Steve Jablonsky nails it as usual, and Natalie Portman effortlessly steals every scene. A forgiving 50% and an unnecessary disappointment. (2011-06-22)

Your Highness is the creepy equivalent of any American fantasy, with derivatives of the word "fuck" appearing as if on a treadmill. The plot is prosaic and all the peripeteia around it are more or less old familiar clichés in a slightly different guise. The cast is likeable, Steve Jablonsky's music is great as always and the running time is optimal. I was most impressed by the Marteetee monster and the unconventionally conceived labyrinth with the minotaur. The film tries to be different compared to its genre contemporaries, which it succeeds in certain places, but falls short in others. (2011-06-21)

I mean it when I say I’d rather see Seth Rogen as Prince Thade, but whatever. This is an unbelievable torrent of the most vulgar, cheap, and lowest form of humor that can flow out of the Hollywood cesspit, and so turning up our noses at the oppressive preachers of morality who don't find this funny is certainly appropriate. I was roaring with laughter from the very beginning, only to realize a third of the way through that the film has a well-constructed regular fantasy story, which works mainly thanks to the great set design and Jablonsky’s perfect music. I don't care whether the film is really that perfect or I just happened to be in the right mood for it, and I give it a full score without any reservations. [PS: Natalie’s bath is exactly the moment when a guy’s brain inevitably bleeds out because his heart is pumping in a completely different direction. (2012-01-04)

“Magic. Motherfucker!” An idiosyncratic approach to the fantasy genre in which the situations known from such films are spiced up with assorted variations of the word “fuck” and jokes based on somewhat juvenile awareness of the sexual differences between men and women and the possibility of copulation between one sex and the other (in other words: vagina here, penis there and a lot of  fucking). This approach isn’t very laborious, as it derives comedy exclusively from the uttering of words that are inappropriate in the given context. With a success rate of one out of every three or four attempts, there are many deaf spots in the film, not to mention the highly misogynistic ogling and treatment of the female characters. I was entertained in places and I recognised the amount of money invested in the money shots (though greater cheapness and self-deprecation wouldn’t have hurt anything), but this is something that I didn’t like enough that I would want to see it again. 60% (2011-06-14)

A fairytale crossed with a toker’s comedy with the bombastic background music by Jablonsky and the amazing, breathtaking, gorgeous and wonderful Natalie Portman that has the perfect pace (the story, not Natalie) and presents us things that you would have never imagined. Or maybe you could imagine it, but you wouldn’t believe that someone could have the balls to put things like that into a movie that only a dumb and irresponsible parent would take their seven-year-old to see. P.S.: Franco’s singing is awfully out of tune. (2011-07-30)