Ed's Review Dot Com

Universal Pictures, Stuber Productions

Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, Rasmus Hardiker, Toby Jones, Justin Theroux, Charles Dance, Damian Lewis

Two Brothers, One brave and daring (Fabious – James Franco) and one bumbling and lazy (Thadeous – Danny McBride) are off on a quest. Fabious has killed the cyclops and brought honor to the family, and Fabious, well, let’s just say he was nearly hanged by the dwarf empire and barely escaped with his life after screwing up another quest. On the way back, Fabious has rescued the lovely virgin princess Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) and her captor and devil Leezar (Justin Theroux) isn’t too happy. He crashes the wedding ala Malificent in Sleeping Beauty and recaptures Belladonna to return to the tower and wait for the eclipse of the two moons to impregnate her and she will, according to the prophecy, give birth to a dragon to allow Leezar to rule the world. Fabious is ready to rescue her, but father insists that Thadeous and the rest of the team participate in the rescue. They bring a lot of weird characters along on this hilarious adventure.

I really enjoyed this film. It’s an adult comedy, but instead of the slapstick one-liner comedy of recent films like the “Scary Movies” and things like Robin Hood, Men in Tights, and other of the myriad of parody films, this one is very funny without being tongue-in-cheek. Not that it’s mature! It’s still silly comedy, but treats itself like high art, taking things very seriously through the hoots and hollers. It’s as if they aren’t in on the joke. Now don’t get me wrong, the parody films like “Meet the Spartans” and “Disaster Movie” are funny, but this is more on the line of “History of the World Part I”, or “Monty PYthon’s Meaning of Life”. That’s not to say that this is going to go down in history like “Blazing Saddles” or any of these other films I’ve just mentioned, but it not in the class of “Hot Tub Time Machine” or “Just Another Teen Movie” that will be forgotten in a week. Somewhere in between, definitely not a classic by any means, but a very funny film just the same.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, and really thought the humor was excellent. James Franco was a lot funnier that I expected him to be, and Danny McBride can yuck it up like the best buffoons in history, but still make you care enough for him to be really happy when he redeems himself. I’m glad they chose to take the direction they did, as it was a satisfying ending. Zooey Deschanel is fantastic as the innocent princess who knows nothing of life, and is very funny, and Natalie Portman plays one of the greatest “kick butt and take names” chick warriors since Chun-Li in Street Fighter II. All in all it’s a rollicking medieval comedy that I though was very enjoyable.

On a side note, they did something else really nice for the premier of this film. Knowing their top customers would be college kids, instead of having their premier party at a Hollywood theater with a red carpet and a host of celebrities hobknobbing the night away, they decided to have a contest via the internet at all the colleges to hold the premier at a college campus that got the most votes. My daughter is a freshman at UC Santa Barbara and they won the contest. This provided the student body with 3 viewings for free, plus a party by the tower with James Franco and Danny McBride in attendance. It was a really classy thing to do, and although the tickets were gone in under 3 minutes, the party was open to the whole student body. Very nice way to introduce the movie. I thought it was a very nice way to introduce the movie.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog