It has been a while since we’ve heard from the R-rated period piece/action comedy Your Highness.
Finally, a trailer has dropped for the ensemble comedy that feels like a perfect mashup of Pineapple Express andRobin Hood: Men In Tights.
The trailer has everything you could imagine in a movie like Your Highness. The cast is truly inspired – James Franco, Danny McBride, Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel should make for quite a team. Most importantly, shoving crude and contemporary humor into a period piece is something I’ve never seen before.Sure, we saw childish humor in Robin Hood: Men in Tights and there’s plenty of modern comedy in Monty Python and the Holy Grail – but the level of vulgarity in this trailer is enough to suggest director David Gordon Green could care less about accuracy. For once, apathy may pay off.
The extended 3:30 trailer splits up the action and comedy right down the middle. The first half plays like a full trailer, showing some story and giving us a sense of each character’s purpose. The latter part is like an action sizzle reel, with CGI combat that rivals a Jerry Bruckheimer production.
Check out the restricted trailer below. The dialogue is definitely NSFW, but the rest is pretty safe:
It almost feels like a prequel to Pineapple Express, featuring the ancestors of Franco and McBride’s hilarious characters in the film. In fact, that would make a hell of a premise. While the inspirations for Your Highness are prevalent in the product itself, the movie feels original. It could be another successful R-rated comedy along the lines of The Hangover.
Regardless of future box office, the trailer is a promising first look. Franco’s ability to handle both serious as well as comedic roles is fascinating. He was flawless in his portrayal of Aron Ralston in 127 Hours. In fact, he should absolutely make the list of Oscar nominees. But Franco has given us some memorable comedic roles, like the drug dealer in Pineapple Express. It’s tough to tell from the trailer, but he seems to be the straight action hero in Your Highness.
On the other hand, one of the funniest men in entertainment today is Danny McBride. Although his shtick may rub some people the wrong way, he is superb as Kenny Powers in HBO’s Eastbound & Down. His bad temper and sour language should play nicely in this type of genre-mashing film.
Of course, we should not forget the leading ladies of the movie – Zooey Deschanel and Natalie Portman are two of the most beloved women in Hollywood today. Deschanel’s character resembles Buttercup in The Princess Bride, while Portman seems more like a petite reincarnation of Xena: Warrior Princess.
I am excited to see where this movie goes thematically. Along with the films mentioned in this article, it has a weird Back to the Future vibe. Maybe it is the contemporary language used by the characters, but there’s something inexplicably cool about the trailer.
Your Highness smokes up theaters on April 8th, 2011.
Source: IGN
No comments:
Post a Comment