Your Highness

Rating: 2.5 Shurikens

Billed as a comedy and action movie at the same time, Your Highness dips into the toilet bowl for much of its humor. As an action movie, it is a decent story about a lazy and crude prince who is jealous of his brother's accomplishments, who yearns more for his brother to fail than to try to make something of himself. The plot is predictable, but there is plenty of action, and even through the very crude humor, the story is enjoyable. It seems to try to be something for everyone, but it doesn't have anything for children.

James Franco as Prince Fabious and Natalie Portman as Isabel support Danny McBride as Prince Thaddeus, who is the useless younger brother of Prince Fabious. Danny McBride costarred with Will Farrell in Land of the Lost, and some other less notable films like Pineapple Express. James Franco is a rising actor, having played Harry Osborne in the three Spiderman movies. We all remember Natalie Portman from her important role in the Star Wars prequel trilogy as Princess Amidala, and also from the movie V for Vendetta.

Fabious goes on quests with his Knights Elite, and enjoys the admiration of everyone in the kingdom, except Thaddeus. From his most recent quest, Fabious has brought back a virgin girl who was kidnapped and held in captivity for her entire life. He wishes to marry her, but the wizard who kept her captive has other ideas. He uses powerful magic to upset the wedding, and takes the girl back to his tower, where she is to meet her fate. Fabious and Thaddeus embark on a quest to reclaim his bride, Belladonna, played by Zooey Deschanel, who was Trillian in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. On the way, the princes are betrayed by someone in their midst, and when they flee, they are captured by wild forest people who throw them into a caged arena to fight a fearsome creature. They meet Isabel, who joins their quest to find the tower of the evil wizard, Leezar, played by Justin Theroux.

The story takes its twists and turns, but cannot pull itself free of the crude humor and references to maijuana, masturbation, and crude sexual references, some of which are funny in spite of being raunchy. In my opinion, the producers attempt to make a comedy more funny by adding the adult humor, but go to the toilet far too often to be called truly funny. Adolescent boys and immature adults should be rolling in the aisles, but anyone seeking an enjoyable time at the movies will have cringe at times at the crassness of this movie. Absolutely do not take small children to see this movie!

Other than the crass and raunchy crudeness, it isn't too bad of a movie. The action is good, and some of the acting is pretty good, and even some of the humor is pretty good. There are some decent special effects, and good camera work. Still, it is best saved for the NetFlix queue or the Red Box, but please don't watch it with little kids. At best I give it 2.5 Shurikens, crude humor taking away from a better production.