Your Highness has continued to get slammed by critics, which upsets me more than if Thor were getting these kind of reviews. I’m such a big fan of what McBride and Green have done before, that I feel slightly shell shocked by the (at the time of writing) 26% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
I still think it’s more likely than unlikely that I’ll personally enjoy the film, but we’ll have to see about that and what general audiences feel about the film. I would imagine the film will land between $10 million and $17 million this weekend, with the film’s $50 million budget looking a long way down the road.
In any case, here are a few reviews. The film does have its supporters, so I’m going to post 3 of those and then 3 negative reviews.
– Drew McWeeny of Hitfix calls it “twisted and ambitious fun”.
Not every joke lands in the movie, but that’s okay. It’s the sort of film that is willing to try anything along the way, and it demonstrates both an affection for the genre as well as a deconstructionist’s eye for how to tear it down from the inside. There are so many little touches in the film that appealed to me, from the “Ghostbusters”-looking visual effects to the straight-faced epic second unit work to the monsters that are state-of-the-art while also managing to be both ridiculous and profane. Natalie Portman’s character, Isabel, is driven by a need for revenge on what seems like a list of 10,000 names, and she plays it like she’s in a serious fantasy movie. That just makes it work better, and again, it’s very true to the genre. The more straight-faced she plays it, the more ridiculous things seem around her, and it really pays off the film’s production values, which all is in service of making this feel like an authentic fantasy film and not a silly comedy version.
– David Edelstein of New York Magazine believes the film is an example of bad taste done right.
The trick is that Your Highness is played like a straight sword-and-sorcery epic, with nary a whisper of camp — a cunning weave of low and high, regal and smutty, splendiferous and splattery. It conforms to popular (bad) taste in ways you might find alarming. But on the far side of alarm is nirvana.
– JoBlo says that Natalie is having the time of her life in their 7/10 review.
I’m a bit taken aback at the way critics have been savaging YOUR HIGHNESS, with it being nearly universally panned by mainstream critics, and the trades. I really don’t get it. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s the funniest slapstick spoof I’ve seen in a long time, probably since at least THE NAKED GUN, or Mel Brooks’ last good comedy (which I suppose would be MEN IN TIGHTS?). If you want a solid ninety minutes of chuckles, YOUR HIGHNESS is well-worth checking out this weekend.
– Now we get to some of the many detractors, starting with Roger Ebert’s 1 star view.
That this is the work of David Gordon Green beggars the imagination. This is the kind of farce Mel Brooks did ever so much better in “Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” and that was far from a good movie.
– James Berardinelli isn’t too hard on the film with a mixed 2.5/4 reivew.
Unless you’re offended by sophomoric sex jokes and the repeated use of profanity, Your Highness is passably entertaining. Yet, considering the talent involved on both sides of the camera, audiences may be expecting more – a lot more.
– But Richard Corliss from Time gives the film both barrels.
But occasionally curious moviegoers will discover an especially rotten specimen of the genus Cinema stinkibus. Entering the theater with low or no expectations, they’ll stumble upon a film of such numbing incompetence that they are forced to realize it’s not just a bad movie but the bad movie — a work of ur-awfulness, counterbrilliance and antigenius.
…
And one of that evening’s winners, Natalie Portman — who shows up midway through as a warrior princess contemptuous of both Thaddeus’ gross behavior and Fabious’ courtly-love airs — has never looked better, and manages not to be disgraced by the proceedings; she will not have her Academy Award revoked.
And now I need to go have a stiff drink.