This blog started as my movie marathon — watching a movie a day for a whole year — and has continued as a place for me to write reviews about movies, TV, and various other items.
This is still a work in progress as I migrate from my old platform at Tumblr. For now, you can still access the whole backlog of posts there at http://reelmatt.tumblr.com
When Prince Fabious’s bride is kidnapped, he goes on a quest to rescue her… accompanied by his lazy useless brother Thadeous.
Year 1, Day 291
BEFORE: The schedule is still messed up and will continue to be so for the next few days. Not only am I behind by five films but my previous plan of comedy, animation, comedy is also being messed up. Long story short, I’ve decided to move up Your Highness to tonight. I remember liking the trailer when it was released two years ago but the critics were quite harsh on the film. So I’m hoping for something good but won’t be surprised if I get another repeat of Billy Madison.
AFTER: A few times during this marathon - not many, just a handful - I’ve watched films and have not written a review. For most, if not all of these occasions, they were because I wanted to watch something for pleasure and not have to write a review. My friends want to watch something and I already watched my movie for the day, why not watch it with them and just relax for a while. Of all these films, A Knight’s Tale is the one I wish I wrote a review for. I’ve already mentioned it a few times before and now I’m going to reference the film a third time. I wish I wrote the review because then I could reference the full thing for comparisons sake, but instead I’ll have to resort to general examples that aren’t as fully developed.
Anyway, let’s focus on why we’re here now, Your Highness. Sad to say, this was closer to the Billy Madison side of the quality scale than I was hoping. It wasn’t funny and both the characters and situations were just over-the-top in terms wackiness. The reason I’m going to mention A Knight’s Tale is because Your Highness very much reminded me of that film both in terms of general feel and an overall style they were going for, just much poorly executed.
A Knight’s Tale is also a comedy, set in medieval times, but has many contemporary elements to it which give the film a certain quality. I think the best way to describe it would be unconventional and quirky. At first I was taken aback by it and detested the mix of old and new, but not far into the film did I find myself liking this combination. Your Highness does almost the exact same thing only on a much smaller scale and with much poorer execution. The “contemporary” elements they added weren’t really modern things like music and technology but supernatural and magical elements like witchcraft (is wizardcraft a word?) and strange beasts. The reason I think this combination failed for Your Highness is because they didn’t go far enough. The film felt like a fantasy film with the medieval parts tacked on instead of what they were probably (or at least should have) going for which is a medieval film with fantastical elements added. In other words, the focus of the film and its resulting tone felt mismatched which removed the humor that could have been, and made it just feel stupid.
Your Highness, despite all I’ve said, wasn’t absolutely horrible. I didn’t find myself turning away and while I wasn’t as highly invested in the film as I am with others, I was focused on it the entire time. This is just a film that missed its mark: one that has the signs of greatness if it just had a tighter, more solid focus, but in the incarnation present just fails miserably. I would very much recommend watching A Knight’s Tale instead; that should make you laugh.
RATING: 2 out of 5