Huh, huh, he said 'Highness'

I’m just gonna come out and say it. “Your Highness” may be the perfect movie — if your sense of humor is like mine, that is.

“Your Highness” is essentially based around this formula: Take a typical fantasy quest film, add copious amounts of cursing and filthy humor and hire a hilarious cast. James Franco, Natalie Portman and Justin Theroux give very good performances, but Danny McBride is the unchallenged star of the show as a bumbling, dirty-minded prince, replete with imagined suavity and inexplicable confidence.

The amount of cursing is astounding for a fantasy film, and each expletive is perfectly timed and deftly worded for maximum comic effect. Viewers who are offended by profanity should avoid this film, but fans of diverse language will relish in this film’s unusual lexicon. In other fantasy films, when a moment comes where a good F-bomb is really needed, the audience gets lets down. “Your Highness” has no such failings.

The plot, following the tone of the movie itself, is pretty absurd. Franco and McBride, two princes, must save Franco’s bride-to-be from an evil wizard who intends to impregnate her during a lunar eclipse to fulfill a prophecy, resulting in her giving birth to a dragon. It makes sense for this film. Why give a film that’s not serious at all a serious plot? Fittingly, the characters mock plot holes throughout the film.

While some viewers with delicate sensibilities will doubtless be offended by the humor in this movie, most people in its target audience (over 17, under 30, immature) will find it riotously funny. While other comedies are admittedly more well-rounded in terms of story, meaning and depth of character, none come to mind that are as funny. Sure, the plot may merely be a vehicle for dick jokes, but that’s all it has to be.

There might never have been a film that takes itself less seriously than “Your Highness.” It mocks the fantasy genre without pulling its punches whatsoever, it mocks itself, and the characters ruthlessly mock each other. It has no pretensions of social or political commentary. It’s simply an extremely funny movie, no more, no less. Ignore the stuffy film critics panning this film. “Your Highness” was meant for you, not them.