The fantasy genre is certainly a ripe one to mock, what with its cynical homogeneity as evidenced in appalling duds like the recent Season of the Witch and Age of the Dragons. Furthermore, the great cast and talented director comprising Your Highness suggests a smart, silly take on the staid genre, combining a cheeky stoner sensibility with a giddily self-aware tone. The result, disappointingly, is less subversive than you'd expect, instead more a soulless mixture of foul language, uninvolving action and a more faithful reverence to genre tropes than is ever needed or wanted. Your Highness is a textbook example of how to squander a promising concept alongside a great cast, for it consists of little more than several one-note gags strung out to feature length. The intentionally bad British accents get boring fast, as does the incessant swearing, which is utilised as a knowingly anachronistic device ala HBO's Deadwood, though boasts little of its wit or punch. The premise involves the two sons of King Tallious (Charles Dance), Thadeous (Danny McBride) and Fabious (James Franco), having to band together and put their differences aside - Fabious is a pretty, charming, suave soldier while Thadeous is a lazy stoner - to rescue Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), Fabious' bride-to-be who is kidnapped by the evil Leezar (Justin Theroux), with the hope he can impregnate her with a Dragon which he can use to take over the Kingdom. The premise is as daft as you'd expect from many a flighty fantasy flick, but the problem is that Green ends up following the stock fantasy narrative too faithfully, garnishing it with colourful language and a few crude gags, but ultimately venturing little from the well-trodden path in way of cleverness or even base humour. A few observations hit the mark - a Yoda-type animatronic stoner child-molester creature and a set-piece involving a giant snake both show promise - but it's just not enough to compensate for the crushing lack of big laughs. Furthermore, the comic timing frequently feels off-kilter due to some peculiar editing and poor use of a fantasy-inspired score, which overwhelms the dialogue and hamstrings the actors. Speaking of which, Danny McBride - who also co-wrote the film - is the star of the show and unquestionably tries hard. He's absolutely begging for his own starring role in a comedy film, and even on this meager basis, it is probably coming his way (especially combined with his stellar work on Eastbound and Down). Justin Theroux is also game in a nearly unrecognisable capacity as Lazaar, and up-and-comer Rasmus Hardikis as Thadeous' loyal servant Courtney plays his part with gusto, but again, the moments that hit are more often than not accompanied by a few that fall execrably flat. As far as Franco goes, it's best to assume that he just wanted something light and undemanding after the gruelling 127 Hours shoot, because he's positively moribund here. Despite clearly touting itself in title as a stoner film, and inviting similar expectations from its cast, Your Highness is not really a stoner comedy; a few jokes involving McBride aside, there's the distinct feeling it would have been funnier had they pushed the genre mash-up button harder, yet it's really exceptionally mild. Much like David Gordon Green's Pineapple Express, an inherent problem also lies in the aestheticisation of violence as isolated from the comedy; it's straight-up gore, which might be fine for a straight-up swords-and-slayings fantasy pic, but here in the interest of laughs it's mostly humourless and therefore takes on a crass, even numbing bent just like it did in the aforementioned film. The action and sense of threat largely negates laughs, despite getting a little more energetic by the end. On the basis of how many clips have been excised from the trailer in the final cut, it all feels too cobbled together and messy. Far from the frat-boys-on-a-mission jaunt it should have been, Your Highness proves that a bad fantasy film with swearing and dick jokes is still a bad fantasy film. Your Highness is out now in the U.S. and hits U.K. screens on Wednesday.