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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Your Highness (Film)

by Joshua Blackman | May 09, 2011 11:10 | Edited May 09, 2011 11:11

With the comedy proving uneven, this surprisingly works better as an epic adventure ride than a vulgar farce.

If you've ever wanted to see armoured knights muttering the f-bomb, Natalie Portman wielding a longbow, or a perverse, pot-smoking purple Muppet, then this is your movie. Like The Princess Bride on acid, Your Highness is a spectacular fantasy adventure-comedy that unexpectedly works better as a straight adventure film than as a vulgar farce.

 

This is in part because the jokes are so hit and miss. Apparently star Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green feel that cursing is in and of itself funny, forgetting the need to actually write jokes around the swearing. It works at the beginning, and a glowering Justin Theroux as the evil sorcerer Leezar has the best of it, but it quickly begins to wear.

 

Thankfully, things are enlivened when Natalie Portman shows up, giving her V For Vendetta English accent a more thorough whirl as a vengeful assassin. She joins up with McBride and James Franco - the most improbable of brothers - on their quest to rescue the princess Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) from Leezar's clutches.

 

McBride (Pineapple Express and the TV series, Eastbound & Down) plays the slacker of the two, the deadbeat Thadeous, who's more at home curled up in a castle with wenches and wizard weed than his heroic brother, Prince Fabious. The film becomes a coming-of-age tale about the unloved, oafish sibling discovering that he's not such an ineffectual klutz after all.

 

Were it not for the crude humour, it would be easy to confuse the film with an actual epic - the Northern Ireland vistas are stunning, and the sets, costumes and special effects are first rate. Particularly impressive is the combination of CGI, puppetry and the old-fashioned, tangible charm of seeing a man in a ten-foot Minotaur suit. The action, too, is clear and exciting, which makes it easier to overlook the unevenness of its comedy.