Your Not-So-Funny-Ness

Oh look, a fantasy movie where the comedy is that the main character swears and the woman fights! Ooh, original!

A waste of skin becomes a hero! Well, more or less, this movie is trying to be at least semi-original by not entirely completing the usual hero journey [they say that in a comedy, a lot of the comedy comes from one of the main characters not changing and reacting in the same way to all situations they come across. This movie treads that line as much as actually trying to give a character arc]. Anyway, in the midst of a typical quest, we have a slob finding out he can be a hero. In so far as comedic narrative will allow.

The main problem with this movie is that there is a decent plot line in there, but there is a layer of "hey, look, we're being funny by being adult and swearing" that drives it into annoying irritation. I did enjoy parts of it, but there was a lot that just went too far in the "woo! Adults! Look, a dick!" comedy that just hammered on any real depth this movie could have achieved.

Danny McBride is generic as the comedic lead, and James Franco is general as the hero lead. The Dream Lord... I mean Toby Jones steals a lot of scenes, and Justin Theroux actually knows how to have fun with his part. And, of course, there's Natalie Portman as the 'hot warrior woman' and Zooey Deschanel as the more typical 'unable to do anything' fantasy woman. No-one's really going to list this as a stellar moment on their CV.

This could have been a better movie, so if you do watch, make sure you're ready for the 'adult' humour...

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