YOUR HIGHNESS

I thought I’d braced myself accordingly before sitting down for this raunchy medieval comedy. I was mistaken. In my defense, I’m not sure anything could have prepared me for the base, vulgar mess that unspooled onscreen before me.

It was, hands down, one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the past year or two.

Co-written by Danny McBride and Ben Best, this dreadful, unfunny and completely ridiculous (not in a good way) film looks and sounds a lot like someone’s drug-induced “brilliant idea” come to life. Which is to say: it’s really really not at all brilliant.

McBride stars as Thadeous, the oafish, lazy, horny, half-baked and largely resentful younger brother of heroic, much-lauded Prince Fabious (James Franco). Fabious is adored by all; Thadeous is essentially ignored by everyone except his loyal servant, Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker), and spends much of his time getting high or masturbating. When Fabious’ virginal bride-to-be, Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), is kidnapped by evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux) for a ritual called, no joke, “The F**kening,” the brothers set out on a quest to save her. Along the way, they sort of join forces with an ass-kicking maiden named Isabel (Natalie Portman), for whom Thadeous’ loins immediately burn.

What follows is a clunky, crass and crude misadventure filled with epic amounts of potty humor and entirely directionless storytelling. There’s a freaky eunuch (Toby Jones), a trio of nightmarish hags, a portly Baby Huey-esque forest fairy with no eyebrows and a truly creepy, amphibious wizard (played by a rubber puppet), who enjoys smoking weed and having young men, erm, manually stimulate him. Did I mention there’s also a severed penis on a chain that becomes a running gag? Please know: I am not kidding about any of this.

McBride miscalculates his performance and winds up being painfully unlikable when, I assume, he thought he was presenting his character as a lovable lout. Like the film itself, he’s boorish and gross and borderline offensive... and I say that as someone who normally enjoys McBride’s work. Franco is wildly out-of-place and wooden, which might have been the point, and I suspect Natalie Portman, fresh off her Oscar win and vats of critical praise, wishes she’d never signed on for this pre-Black Swan dud.

As far as I can tell, the entire thing seems geared towards 14-year-old boys, or folks so stoned that they might find the proceedings entertaining and funny. Sadly, I am neither. Nothing about Your Highness is clever or inventive or even envelope-pushing... except, I suppose, in a how-bad-can-we-make-this-movie-and-still-have-it-released-theatrically sense. My film-going pal, who suffered through the screening with me, actually wondered aloud how it managed not to go straight to DVD. And, really, I had no answer.