Note: The Hollywood Reporter is usually my favorite trade publication.
Your Highness isn’t a great movie. It’s not even very good. But it’s fun, has moments, and certainly isn’t an abomination. The Hollywood Reporter just ran their review, and it is an abomination. Kirk Honeycutt seems to have some vendetta in his review and it mystifies me. He gives away a major sight gag from the third act, calls David Gordon Green “tone-deaf to comedy” without mentioning his phenomenal successes with Pineapple Express and episodes of Eastbound & Down, mistakenly accuses James Franco and Zooey Deschanel of sleepwalking through their roles, and when discussing Natalie Portman mistakenly focuses mostly on the work of what is obviously her stunt double.
How does someone call David Gordon green tone deaf to comedy?
How does a professional reviewer miss the mark so much? How does he not mention Justin Theroux’s stuff, some of my favorite parts of the movie? How does he not realize what Green/McBride/Franco/Ben Best’s unified “brand” is like? This movie certainly fits their mold, though is a more polished, effects heavy and less smart and layered comedy than the classic Pineapple Express.
This movie is going to fail. It’s impossible for it not to. It looks expensive, isn’t a resounding creative success, and comes out at a time where the genre it’s using/spoofing/goofing on isn’t as big as it was four years ago.
But it’s a movie with some great moments and certainly not the affront Honeycutt makes it out to be.
It just feels wrong. Like there’s some ulterior motive I missed. Or, maybe that particular reviewer can’t rest easy if a movie doesn’t live up to his [not the filmmakers’ for sure] notion of Your Highness being comparable to the best work of Monty Python and Mel Brooks’ careers.
Boo.