Fabious and Thadeous are two princely brothers in a world of swords and sorcery. With the abduction of Fabious' bride to be by an evil wizard on their wedding day, the brothers must now quest together to rescue her. Along the way they will have to endure hideous monsters, each other and a litany of homophobic plot elements and bad sex jokes.
It's Lord of the Rings meets Animal House...
...it wishes.
Danny McBride, James Franco and Zooey Deschanel do not seem particularly out of place in this tasteless farce, but I can't help but wonder what Natalie Portman is doing hanging out in this low rent crowd. Did she lose a bet?
Aside from Portman, Justin Theroux stands out in his performance as the evil wizard as do the actresses playing the three mothers, as well Toby Jones in a most unglamorous role but he pulls it off with gusto. Franco portrays his character as if he is stoned in every scene even though he only imbibes anything in one scene while McBride, whose character imbibes freely, plays it sober. McBride is also fully aware he is in a movie.
I was on the fence for a while about how to rate this. Between moments of morbidly unfunny sex jokes are some well done action scenes and even funny moments. The constant focus on genitalia keeps penetrating the dialogue, so to speak. But in the end, despite any strengths, what is most memorable about this is its failures.
If you are a 13 year old virgin, in other words you play Dungeons & Dragons, this might appeal to you. The constant sexual innuendo gets tiresome and the frequent homophobia lowers it past juvenile. I would also caution anyone who has been a victim of child molestation, or with whom that is a sore spot, to possibly avoid this film.
The balance tips just enough for me not to recommend this film. If I were scoring it, I would give it a 2.5 out of 5.
You can get this on Amazon.com in various formats.
Is D&D even a thing anymore? I think virgins these days are into video games now. And is it me or is Franco sliding into Unholy Trinity territory? He is in a lot of movies now....I mean a LOT.
ReplyDeleteIt is a thing only in that I like to torture roleplayers. But, also yes, tabletop roleplaying is alive and well.
DeleteI haven't paid much attention to Franco so I don't know the answer to that. I think a lot of actors/actresses are doing a lot of work in films anymore. It used to be a joke about someone phoning in their performance, now they can literally do that. It's not unusual to see someone doing 15 roles a year where years ago that would have been a heavy schedule.