Comedy, 102 Minutes, 2011
This is one of those movies that simply over-stays its welcome. You will laugh – at least a little. But a royal, fantasy prince saying “fuck” is only funny once… maybe twice. Here you get it about 148 times. That minotaur dick joke was mildly funny. Missed it? Don’t worry, it’ll get referenced 20 more times.
It’s also odd how great actors will devolve to the quality of the material. Natalie Portman’s role is almost completely straight-faced so she does an excellent job (as always) and is an absolute joy (as always). Everybody else is given ridiculous lines and they deliver them with all the respect they deserve. James Franco, especially, hams it up large. Zooey Deschanel is charming as hell but given so little to work with it’s sad.
It’s not all bad. There are actually some interesting ideas and effects if you scrape off the smarm slathered over everything. There’s some weird, but sometimes successful, call-outs to classic fantasy films and a few (very few) exchanges that were legitimately clever.
In the final analysis however this was essentially a clever 10 minute skit dragged kicking and screaming to over 90 minutes.
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