Your Highness Script Review

Natalie Portman in "Your Highness"

“Your Highness” should be a great script. I mean it’s written by Danny McBride and Ben Best, the two writers behind McBride’s very, very funny star vehicles: “The Foot Fist Way” and “Eastbound & Down” (which both qualify as high points of comedy in the last few years). “Your Highness” is their next project and McBride’s next starring vehicle and the premise is ripe for comedy – basically Danny McBride playing his stoner, douchy character from everyone else, but set in Medieval times. McBride is Thaddeous, a wimpy, lazy prince who is forced to go on a quest for the “Hoop of Doom,” and in the process he falls in love with a warrior princess, fights trolls, and generally makes fun of the entire premise.

Let me preface this by saying, the draft I read doesn’t really line up with the released information about the movie– in this earlier draft, the character of his brother, Fabious (played in the film by James Franco) doesn’t go on the quest with him and is generally a secondary character. Released plot information places the film as a buddy comedy between the two actors, so who knows how much of what I read is in the film itself.

Let’s just hope I’m right, and this script is not what we’ll see on the screen next year.

The film is a raunchy male comedy with lots of scatological humor and drug references. I can appreciate the satirical look at Medieval times and their portrayals in film, but it just doesn’t quite hit me as funny. The only way I could entertain myself while reading the script is if I imagined Thaddeous’s lines being spoken by McBride.  Otherwise they fall flat and unfunny.

The secondary problem with this script is the uneven blend of contemporary comedy and medieval language and customs. McBride and Best don’t quite know how much of a period piece they want this to be, and it often feels like they are winking at the reader and saying how clever they are. It gets annoying quickly, and I wish they had stuck to one tone for the entire script.  Instead of developing the characters and plot (which is pretty episodic), they just make joke after joke that don’t quite work in execution.  Hopefully the script has been tightened and improved, and surely under the direction of David Gordon Green (“Pineapple Express” and “Eastbound & Down”), the film found its footing through the course of improvisation and timing.

I still have high hopes for this movie.  However, the premise and talent involved should be better than what I read in this script.

Status: Currently in Post-Production, directed by David Gordon Green and Starring Danny McBride, James Franco, and Natalie Portman. Set for release October 1, 2010.

Final Score (4 out of 10)