If you are reading this expecting some kind of endorsement of this film, you will not find it. There are people on IMDB who believe, apparently wholeheartedly, that this was a well done movie. It somehow warranted 4.1/10 stars as an average rating, and surely not every 10/10 score was a troll review. There are people out there who liked this movie and want to see more like it.
After viewing Human Centipede II (HC2 for short), I was left with the impression that Producer/Director Tom Six made it purely as an experiment, some attempt to see what people would watch and what kind of content they would clamour for. My understanding is that HC2 took about $140,000 at the Box Office (worldwide!), and unless the players in this grotesque assault on our sensibilities worked for under $5k apiece, I have to assume it did not recoup it's costs.
So why on earth is there demand for a 3rd? Why is a third being produced? Why are people watching the progress of the third instalment with such eagerness? Tom Six has declared there won't be a fourth, and I assume that this is because he expects to be tried in the Hague for his crimes.
Don't get me wrong. I am not naturally squeamish. I mean there are certainly some things I can't tolerate, like eye trauma - something that will affect me regardless of setting and presentation, be it Hostel or Happy Tree Friends. A small mercy I can be thankful for is that eye trauma is something HC2 does not explore - as far as I can tell, the only thing.
I have seen HC1. I have seen the first 5 SAW movies. I have seen Hostel. Although these movies are classed as little more than 'torture porn', sometimes I want to be grossed out or a little shocked. Usually I watch these movies with my wife, because she is a huge horror fan. These days there is little that scares us in the traditional sense, so... she seeks out other ways to be horrified.
In one evening we watched HC1 and 2 back to back, and while I already knew the premise of HC1 (who didn't?), I still found the movie appropriately weird and gross and appealed to my morbid curiousity. The Doctor in the movie was creepy enough to be interesting, even though there is no real explanation given for his actions. He became world-famous as the foremost surgeon in separating conjoined twins, and for some reason this inspired him to conjoin people via one digestive tract.
When I was 10 years old a friend of mine once told me a story that he swears was "absolutely 100% cross my heart and hope to die" true, about a doctor who got a boy and a girl and he forced the boy to put his penis in the girl's vagina and then cut their skin so they they would heal together and stay conjoined like that forever. Considering this is the basic technique HC1 subjects would be conjoined ass-to-mouth 17 years later, I'm wondering if he had something to do with these movies. Shawn, buddy, if you remember me from Auburn North Primary, drop me a line and let me know.
At this point it might be clear I am delaying actually talking about HC2. I have done movie recaps previously and I want to be clear that while I am somewhat recapping HC2, I am doing so from memory, after one viewing, in an attempt to purge this from my mind and serve as a cautionary tale to the rest of you. I have tried to articulate that I, as an open minded person of a reasonably strong constitution, was repulsed by this movie in almost every way it is possible to be repulsed. I want to remark again that in spite of this, they are making a Human Centipede 3, which while it apparently stars the same villain of HC2, will be set in a Nazi Prison camp and involve a 500-person centipede.
If that stirs some kind of curiousity in you, keep reading, so I can explain in detail (but not too graphically) why this is a bad idea, based on my experience with HC2.
As a point of interest, HC2 is 99.9% black and white, and opinions are divided as to why. What we know is that it was shot in colour, and changed to black and white in post-production. Some people believe that this was a style choice by Tom Six, and makes the movie scarier. I am more inclined this was obviously an attempt to get by the UK censors, and believe me, there are plenty of reasons I am glad this movie was not displayed in colour.
The movie begins with scenes from HC1, being watched on a laptop by Martin, our lead player and villain, working what I assume to be the graveyard shift in a parking garage in London. He's an ugly, short, obese, mentally impaired man who has weird bug out guys and droopy lips that immediately give you the vibe that in addition to being retarded, he is also broadcasting a massive creepy vibe. For the record, Martin never has any dialogue, he only grunts and, occasionally, laughs.
So it is made clear that HC1 was in fact a work of fiction in the "world" of this movie. The actors and actresses were not harmed, they were performing in a movie. The Human Centipede is not a thing that was actually undertaken by anyone at any point.
However, Martin is obsessive. He watches the movie constantly. He keeps a large scrapbook with a Human Centipede movie poster taped to the cover, filled with sketches and photographs, and the almost hilarious note on the inside cover that declares that the movie was "100% MEDICALLY ACCURATE", something I am certain that a mentally impaired parking garage attendant is an authority on. We don't see the scrapbook until later, but I'm really only going to give this movie the most basic of rundowns, so it's not important. He also has a pet centipede that pops up occasionally.
In any case, Martin is inspired and wants to make his own centipede. In short, he captures people by sneaking up on them in the parking garage, knocking them out with a crowbar, and tossing them in the back of his van. Given that the police are never seen to come looking for any of the missing people, I am going to give the movie some credit here and assume that the events of the movie happen over a span of maybe 2-3 days.
Throughout the first half of the movie Martin receives voicemail messages from talent agencies that indicate that Martin was trying to secure the participation of the three victims of the movie by pretending he has a role for them in a Tarantino movie. As it transpires Akihiro Kitamura (the front piece) and Ashley C. Williams (middle) are not available, but Ashlynn Yennie (the end part) is available and thrilled to work with Tarantino - so in reality we have to assume she was the only person willing to associate herself with this movie. Checking IMDB it seems Ashley really did have a lot of work, so I'll give her credit. Akihiro was less busy, but I can appreciate why he would have preferred not to appear.
Ashlynn on the other hand was clearly a lot more eager for any kind of work, but things seem to have picked up for her more recently, so I guess doing this movie was a worthwhile gamble.
So we have our premise. 11 civilians and one actress are forcibly held hostage so a crazy man can bring his dream to reality. While fantasizing about his dream, Martin masturbates with sandpaper, and seeing him wrap the sandpaper around his penis and begin tugging, later urinating blood as a result, is the tamest thing this movie has to offer.
Ultimately Martin only has 10 people to make his centipede with, because he accidentally kills two of them (or so he thinks), because apparently repeatedly beating people over the head with a crowbar to keep them unconscious is not conducive to their wellbeing. By the way, one of the people he 'kills' was pregnant, so there's clearly no lines this movie won't cross.
There are some plot elements involving a creepy psychiatrist Martin has sessions with, an abusive father and upstairs neighbour, a psycho controlling mother, but none of these plot elements ultimately matter or provide any kind of justification for Martin's character or the plot, they simply provide targets to outlet Martin's perversity.
So here's the breakdown: Martin has to connect ten people ass-to-mouth, with no surgical skills, knowledge, or tools. So he assembles a kit of pliers, knives, pruning shears, a hammer, a staple gun, some rubber tubing and a funnel. Are you squirming yet?
At first he attempts to copy the procedures undertaken by the doctor in the first movie by cutting open the knees of his unconscious and ducttape-bound subjects, pulling out the ligaments, and cutting them with scissors. You can safely assume all of these procedures result in the waking up of the victims, and much gagged screaming.
The victims also have to have their teeth removed, which is where the hammer comes into play. Instead of sedating his victims and tugging them with pliers, he just smashes their teeth in. In the unrated cut this goes on far too long and was nearly my breaking point. For reasons beyond my understanding, my wife didn't turn the movie off this point (in spite of my protests) so I beat down my nausea and kept viewing. I know I was free to stop watching, I wasn't being subjected to the Ludovico method here, but I did not.
Judge me as you will.
This grisly process complete, Martin sets about preparing his victims to be joined. Now while in the original this was a delicate process involving grafting the flesh together, Martin immediately butchers this process with his first candidate, most likely severing an artery as blood flows freely from the wound and the man dies, which I am sure is a small mercy for him.
As Martin realises he cannot undertake this procedure with the same finesse as the Doctor in the movie, he compromises by lining his victims up and stapling their lips and assholes together. No surgery, just straight up stapling, reinforced with more duct tape.
Martin places some food in a bowl on the floor in front of Ashlynn (who is the lead piece of this centipede) but she refuses to eat, and cusses him out a bit, to which he responds by ripping out her tongue with pliers. After this, he forcefeeds her via funnel (and around 6 feet of rubber piping forcibly shoved down her throat) and begins his imitation of the doctor's inspection of their digestive process, trying to encourage them to shit, because of course, that's the whole point. Sadly, no amount of belly rubs will compel them to do so, so he injects liquid laxative into their behinds. Now the bottle clearly says oral laxative, but he is clearly injecting it into their rears, not their mouths, I don't care what anyone in the IMDB forums say.
This quickly take effects and farting noises serenade the gleeful Martin as he dances around, cackling as his centipede finally results in the victims explosively shitting into each others mouths. Of course because thy are not surgically grafted together, there is some significant leakage which even splashes onto the camera - we deliberately and literally have shit flying directly into our figurative eyes as a result of watching this movie and maybe I should have just opened this recap with that and saved myself some time.
Would you believe it is HERE that we get our only appearance of colour in this black and white film? Go on, guess which colour is represented.
Once the centipede has finally finished it's bowel evacuation, Martin is apparently overcome with lust. He walks up behind his 10-strong chain of stapled people and picks up a piece of barbed wire from the floor, which he diligently and firmly wraps around his penis.
You know where this is going, but I'm still going to tell you.
He gets on his knees behind the rear-most victim and proceeds to rape her, with his freshly barbed penis. Again, this scene just keeps going, making sure we have multiple angles of this urgent thrusting into his screaming victim, including one from the front end of the centipede so we see the entire writhing mass of bodies in front of Martin as he pounds away.
So this reaches it's conclusion and Martin is slumped over his victim, I suppose enjoying the bliss of the afterglow and pride in his accomplishment, when suddenly the pregnant woman wakes up under a sheet where Martin had deposited her in the corner after she apparently 'died' earlier. She runs screaming from the room, Martin slow to react... and of course her water breaks, leaving her waddling down a corridor with a steady stream of fluid leaving a trail behind her.
She makes it outside and gets into a car left behind by one of Martin's victims, the landlord for the property he is using, and the keys are still inside, so she's home free right?
Well Martin is right behind her and starts banging on the windows, and she's screaming and... oh, she gives birth there in the footwell of the driver's seat, treating us to a shot from her POV so we can see the baby sliding out of her from above. Now I thought after all this maybe it would be stillborn, but I hadn't really begun to formulate these expectations given that I genuinely thought we'd seen the last of the pregnant woman until 30 seconds earlier. In any case, the baby is presumably meant to be alive at this point, because they have dubbed in sound effects of a baby's distressed crying starting up.
The woman puts the car into gear desperate to get away and presses down on the accelerator, which, of course, has the baby's head under it. We get a close shot of the baby's still-soft skull being crushed as she puts the hammer down and reverses away.
I am not making any of this up. This is something that was filmed and distributed and sold as entertainment.
Martin proceeds back inside and in his absence the centipede has broken apart in the middle and is crawling around in two halves looking for a way out. Angry and distressed by this turn of events, Martin takes out a gun and starts shooting them, one by one, starting with the victims in the back half and working his way up until he runs out of bullets.
Ashlynn at this point has managed to get to a light switch (despite still having several dead people stapled to her asshole) and turn out the lights before Martin can find something else to kill her with. The lights come back on and she smashes Martin over the head with his centipede tank, which also happened to be nearby. While he squirms on the floor, she picks up the centipede and the funnel and yes, she jams that funnel right up his ass, and drops the centipede into it.
Martin goes into a frenzy of screams and clutches his belly as presumably the centipede burrows deeper, biting him painfully along the way. At some point he kills Ashlynn by beating her head in with his crowbar, and then he leaves.
The End.
I was going to write a conclusion here, discussing what we learned from this experience, and discussing the film, but there is just nothing to discuss. People condemn toilet-humour or grossout comedies, but at least that stuff is mostly harmless and in ‘good fun’. This is grossout cranked to eleven, with no reprieve. I can’t fathom what the intention of this movie was or what kind of person Tom Six is, but if there isn’t a law enforcement agency somewhere keeping surveillance on him just in case, I’d be honestly surprised.
I think I'm fast establishing myself as someone who enjoys bad movies - or at least trashy movies that failed to realise an otherwise promising potential.
I originally saw trailers for this movie in late 2010/early 2011 and it looked like fun. I knew it wouldn't be great, and given that it was several years after we last saw a Lord of the Rings movie in cinemas (and a couple more until we see The Hobbit) it would either bridge the gap by being an amusing take on the swords & sorcery genre, or it would simply be a poorly timed mess.
After initially seeing the trailer, the movie dropped completely and utterly off my radar. It wasn't until this weekend just past that something prompted me to wonder about "that fantasy movie with the swearing and Natalie Portman's butt".
After racking my brains for a moment I remembered the title, and tracked it down.
I'll admit I resorted to torrenting this one. It'll probably appear on Foxtel in a few months (assuming I haven't missed it) but I so seldomly watch anything on TV these days despite paying a premium for a cable service that I feel like my piracy is somehow justified. Besides, I'm in Australia. We don't have Netflix and even if we did it would probably suck.
So I torrented this movie. I torrented it in 25 minutes while aimlessly shifting in my chair and wondering if I'd ever actually watch it. Then, because I couldn't be bothered playing any video games (and my wife was deeply involved in hunting down collectibles in Alan Wake) I popped in the decrepit iPod earphones with no rubber left on them and decided to watch Your Highness.
Your Highness, despite the reviews on imdb and rotten tomatoes and the scathing whines of Gene Siskel, is not a bad movie. It's filthy, immature, and has a bunch of drug references scattered through it, but it's nowhere near the lowest order of comedy movies I've seen.
Writer/Producer Danny McBride (who also plays the lead) was also responsible for Pineapple Express, which I hated. Apparently it's great for stoners, and I'll have to take their word on that because to me Pineapple Express was a directionless pointless mess of wacky instances that failed to be tied together in any meaningful way. Structurally it kind of felt like a remake of The Big Lebowski, but it wasn't nearly as charming or interesting (for the record I didn't much care for The Big Lebowski either, but I'd never call it bad).
I frankly don't know how I'd like Pineapple Express even if I were stoned, because while I’ve gotten ripped and watched Spongebob or Sesame Streetat and laughed my ass off, at least those things justify the wacky shit that happens within the episode.
When I realised all this I did hesitated, but thought ‘no, at least this movie seems to kind of have a point to it’ - and I think the investment of my time paid off. Your Highness is a by-the-numbers fantasy story involving heroes on a quest to save a damsel in distress, they meet companions along the way, discover their true potential, etc. If this weren't so filled to the brim with swearing and sexual innuendo, it would be boring as hell.
Danny McBride plays Thadeous, a cynical layabout who is bitter about the success of and attention given to his older brother Fabious, who is a dashing hero type who is constantly going on quests - but at the same time completely unmotivated to do anything but sit around banging chambermaids and getting high. And here you'd expect this entire movie to be nothing but stoner humour, but you'd be wrong. The tendency to enjoy some marijuana is a character quirk, something we know about Thadeous, but not central to his character. He will not 'comically' seek out a high wherever possible, or have constant bouts of paranoia or the munchies. He just smokes weed and likes it and we file that information away.
At the movie's opening we see some old witches holding a young woman captive, while twin moons are in alignment overhead. Just then, some knights ride up and attack the hags – they fire magic back at them but their shields and armour are impervious to magic. They kill the witches, introduce themselves as the "Golden Knights" and rescue the woman. That's it. It's really just a 'remember this for later' moment with some narration that indicates the moons align every 100 years or so.
Naturally, the movie skips forward to "basically 100 years later", as the onscreen titles inform us. We open onto a scene where Thadeous is about to be hanged by some dwarves for consorting with the Dwarf King's wife (who for the record, is not a dwarf). Thadeous protests that he only consorted a little bit ("just the tip") which doesn't help. The executioner drops the trapdoor, but of course because this gallows was built for dwarves, Thadeous lands harmlessly on the ground with enough slack in the rope to escape. You'd think I'd have seen this joke coming, but I didn't, so this movie kind of won me over right out of the gate.
We get an animated opening credit sequence which shows a series of still frames of Thadeous and his squire Courtney fleeing from dwarves and getting into all kinds of trouble along the way. Mostly the action is implied, and it sounds like they had some pretty epic adventures on their way back to the castle.
Once the credits are done Fabious is returning from a quest, and reveals he has killed a cyclops (bringing it's head as a trophy) and rescued a fair maiden whom he intends to marry, named Belladonna (played by Zooey Deschanel). I will agree with general consensus that Deschanel is wasted in this role - Belladonna adds very little to the storyline, she is little more than a prop that occasionally delivers some out of place lines to remind us that she has been isolated from regular society and is therefore somewhat naive. Since this naivete is strictly played for laughs on perhaps two occasions and has no impact on the plot or story, they could have gone with an unknown here and saved some money. Not that I'm unhappy to see Deschanel, I think she's great. Just... wasted here. There's a dinner scene in the first ten minutes where Belladonna tries to comb her hair with a fork. This is the material she has to work with.
Thadeous has a chip on his shoulder about how everyone adores his brother, and gets a lecture from his father about how useless he is. And frankly, as the second son and therefore in little danger of ever being king, it's not like he serves a purpose anyway. Maybe the old man could cut him some slack.
Thadeous wanders off and talks himself up, waving a sword around in a training room (very poorly), but assures himself he could be great if he wanted. There's a little exposition with Thadeous' squire Courtney, who's your typical scrawny buttmonkey squire type with a shitty haircut. Basically, it reinforces that Thadeous acts useless because he feels useless.
Fabious comes by and gives Thadeous a big pep talk, and reinforces what a great guy he is. He's blind to Thadeous' faults and has a true brotherly love for him. He perks Thadeous up by convincing him to be his best man, assuring him that the best man gets to finger the bridesmaids, in a tradition that I'm pretty sure is alive and well today.
We skip forward to the day of the wedding (or maybe the wedding is literally the next day), Thadeous in powdered wig and makeup heading to the ceremony when he overhears two of Fabious' knights complaining about how worthless Thadeous is, one in particular complaining that he gave his hand in battle (replaced by a sweet looking mechanical gauntlet) and yet he wasn't asked to be the best man. The character with the mechanical hand is Boremont, Fabious' second in the "Knights Elite", and played by Damian Lewis who you might otherwise know as Charlie from the TV series Life, or Nicholas from the TV series Homeland. For the record, the other Knight is named Thundarian.
Of course, overhearing people saying mean things sends the petulant Thadeous away, refusing to attend the ceremony without a word to his brother. At the ceremony, the King tells Fabious to forget Thadeous and get on with the ceremony with another best man. At this Boremont steps forward but the king tips Julie to fill in the (a weasely-looking, homely old man who acts as manservant to Fabious and the Knights Elite), much to Boremont's disdain.
Meanwhile, Courtney has gone to find Thadeous and bring him back for the wedding. He's sitting by a river smoking pipes with some "goblins" which really just seem to be really dirty people with tangled hair. Eh. Close enough. Courtney eventually convinces Thadeous to return to the castle
After a brief song and dance (which I'm going to be honest, I completely tuned out of) with Fabious and Belladonna, they prepare to be wed. At that moment, we meet our main antagonist, a powerful sorceror named Lazar. He informs us that Belladonna was actually his prisoner since she was a young girl, he was keeping her 'pure'for himself until the next eclipse of the twin moons, because of some ceremony he needs to perform that requires a virgin, and now he’s taking her back.
This is when they drop the precision F-Bomb that sold me on the trailer.
Fabious: And how do you intend to do that?
Lazar: Magic…
*cracks neck*
Motherfucker.
Magic happens, Lazar grabs Belladonna and is stabbed through the chest by Fabious, who laughs it off because regular mortal weapons don't hurt him. I think it's actually an old Dungeons & Dragons thing that wizards can't be hurt by edged weapons. Or maybe I made that up.
Lazar summons his "mothers", an old witch who can split into three witches for reasons that are never really explained. The Knights Elite get their butts kicked by more magic. Fabious lunges at Lazar but Lazar casts a spell that makes him move in extreme slo-mo. Lazar then grabs Belladonna again and teleports out of there with his mothers. Fabious returns to normal speed and falls uselessly to the floor.
Now I'm only skimming over the things that happen but I want to point out here that this really was a well done (if rather cheesy) action sequence. The pacing was good, the effects were good, the camerawork was good. It really wouldn't be out of place in a non-comedy. So... it was good. I just wanted to point that out.
Thadeous returns with Courtney after everything is over, and Fabious asks him to join him on a quest to find a way to defeat Lazar and rescue Belladonna. Naturally, Thadeous refuses the call, because that's what heroes do. It’s a common trope of the hero’s journey. Eventually he gets bossed into it by the king, and agrees to tag along.
We briefly get a scene where Thadeous is sitting in a carriage with Courtney, complaining, and then the carries arrive at some ruins. Apparently there is a wise old sage living here that Fabious gets advice from, and he wants Thadeous to join him. Thadeous complains some more but agrees. Julie takes a moment to rub into Boremont that he (Boremont) used to go with Fabious to see the sage. I don't want to ruin anything but I think anyone would be able to see the foreshadowing here. They're plainly setting this up for Boremont to turn out to be evil later.
After a brief COMEDY! moment where Thadeous insists on wearing full platemail on a simple errand and falls down some stairs, we visit the sage's hovel. The sage is an odd creature, half lizard half man with a kind of jellyfish scalp that pulsates and glows. He's also smoking from a pipe. He's also a pervert.
Before he will help Fabious he demands a kiss from each of them. Thadeous is rather incredulous at this but Fabious complies, because this is all part of questing. He also reveals that this has been going on since he was a little boy (!), when they used to take their shirts off and jump on the bed. Ok.
Temporarily satisfied with the kiss, he gets Fabious and Thadeous to smoke from his pipe, which causes Fabious to freak out and have dark visions. Thadeous, the experienced smoker, tells Fabious he needs to "handle his shit".
During this scene I was kind of hoping that we would now discover that this is what questing actually is in the world of this movie - filled with all the kind of shit Thadeous enjoys like drugs and sex and so forth, and he would have a sudden realization that all Fabious really does is go out into the woods to get high with his friends, and he's been avoiding questing all this time for no reason. This doesn't turn out to be the case (except in this one scene, anyway) and it's probably for the best, because that would probably be a really lame movie. This is why I don't work in Hollywood.
Anyway, the sage interprets Fabious’ “dark visions” and gives Fabious a magic compass that will point them to the Sword of Unicorn, the only weapon that can defeat Lazar. He then gives Fabious a riddle, which is actually a thinly veiled allusion that he wants a handjob. Fabious, who is starting to come across as a bit of a dimwit, happily complies, because that's just part of "questing". Thankfully, we cut away as Fabious urges Thadeous to “tickle the balls while I pinch the tip”.
Later on that evening Knights Elite have made camp and they slice open an animal carcass that they’ve presumably hunted and goad Thadeous into taking a bite of the animal’s heart. Of course as soon as he does, they laugh at him, which sends him running off into the woods like a little girl. Fabious chases him down, and assures him the hazing is over, the Knights Elite now know he’s “not to be fucked with”.
Elsewhere, Courtney is taking a piss behind a tree while Julie pulls a tooth from his mouth and uses it to open some kind of portal, through which we see Lazar’s face. He warns Lazar about Fabious and Thadeous, so Lazar orders Julie to deal with them. Courtney runs and tells Thadeous and Fabious and thankfully subverting the whole ‘faithful servant/blindly loyal master’ stereotype Fabious believes Courtney and they question Julie – Julie idiotically decides to run instead of trying to deny anything, and runs into one of the tents where he is seized by Boremont.
Incidentally, Julie’s robe is stripped off while he’s running and it’s revealed he has no dick. He’s smooth as a Ken doll. I guess this was done purely for visual impact and so they could call him dickless, because there’s no reason for this whatsoever and never becomes relevant in any way. Hey! I’m not saying this is high comedy, I’m just saying it’s not as bad as people say!
Fabious tells Boremont about Julie consorting with Lazar, to which Boremont unsurprisingly reveals he and the other Knights have been working with Lazar all along – which raises a few questions:
Firstly, how long? Always? If so, why have they been pretending to serve Fabious all these years when Fabious only recently crossed Lazar? If they only joined Lazar recently, why? It can’t be purely because Boremont got passed over as best man at Fabious’ wedding – and if he was working for Lazar then, why did he even want to be best man if he knew that Lazar was going to attack and re-kidnap Belladonna anyway? I think this is kind of explained later on, but it was kind of perplexing at the time.
Anyway, Thadeous and Fabious and Courtney jump into a carriage and flee from the Knights (there are four of these guys by the way, and since I only know Boremont and Thundarian by name, I will make up names for the other two. One of them has a weird puffy blonde afro and looks kind of crosseyed, so let’s call him Strangelook. The other guy is completely unremarkable by comparison, so I’ll call him Nondescripto.
So, the Knights are chasing Thad, Fab and Courtney when all of a sudden, fucking Samurai in chariots out of NOWHERE. At first I thought the movie was making a joke, by replacing the Knights with blatantly obvious Asian stunt doubles but no, apparently these Samurai bandits just happened to decide to ambush the carriage when the carriage already had the Knights in hot pursuit. Even though I just watched two men give a handjob to a blue lizardman with a jellyfish head, THIS was the first moment in the movie where I sat back and said “what the fuck”.
(On repeat viewing I note that these guys actually do appear in the background of a couple of other scenes so while they get no lines or attention they appear to be either members of the Knights Elite or possibly servants of some kind. Either way, their appearance is not as random as I have suggested previously. - Kermi)
So… the samurai-looking guys (aka expendible extras) jump on the carriage which has Fabious driving and Courtney and Thadeous inside. Fabious strangles one of the Samurai with a whip (or something) and throws him off, which causes him to pass under the carriage and be dragged behind to be acknowledged later. Meanwhile the other one (who has long hair) is climbing in the back window of the carriage being kicked at by the inept Courtney and Thadeous who are unarmed.
Thankfully Boremont throws a knife at the carriage (for some reason) and it embeds itself in the wood. Courtney grabs it while Thadeous pulls the samurai’s hair, and accidentally scalps him. Well, it gets the desired result, which is to make the samurai scream and fall off the carriage. Meanwhile, the Knights have caught up.
Boremont jumps on the front of the carriage with Fabious and they struggle before falling off. Fabious and Boremont tumble into the short-hair Samurai who is still being dragged behind the carriage and amazingly is still alive. Boremont doesn’t manage to hang on, Fabious does, and climbs back onto the carriage while Thadeous and Courtney struggle with Nondescripto. They manage to fight him off and climb up onto the driver’s seat of the carriage with Fabious, when suddenly they see Thundarian and Strangelook standing on an overhanging tree branch ahead of them.
Not only does this make no sense, since this chase has been going at high speed in a straight line for some time (basically, how did they even get ahead that far), but it really adds nothing to the scene because the fall uselessly through the roof of the carriage, Fabious, Thadeous and Courtney jump onto the horses and cut the horses free of the carriage which them flips and crashes. I thought maybe they were going to do a “wooden carriage explodes for no reason” joke but they didn’t, and all the Knights are intact and uninjured next time we see them (you didn’t think that was the last we saw of them, did you)?
Later we’re in the middle of the woods and Fabious releases the horses to throw the Knights off their trail. Thadeous complains about having to “walk all the way home” but is dismayed to hear the quest continues.
Oh. I forgot something kind of important which I can’t be bothered going back to edit in. Fabious has a mechanical pet bird named Simon, who is intelligent enough to understand human speech. It also “talks” in a chattery mechnical way, which it seems people can understand, at least enough to get the basic gist of whatever it’s trying to communicate. It’s seldom important but is kind of a plot point later. Thadeous hates Simon and it’s never explained why, but probably due to his jealousy of Fabious. Earlier on he got his own pet companion as a counterpart to Simon, an iguana named Steve that does nothing. It’s seen once in the camp scene earlier, and will be seen once again later.
It’s referenced here because Thadeous realises they left Steve behind and demands Fabious get rid of Simon so they’re equal. Fabious points out Thadeous still has Courtney, though Thadeous would happily get rid of Courtney to be rid of Simon too. Courtney is surprisingly unperturbed by this, which cements him as a complete doormat if that wasn't alreeady apparent.
Anyway, Fabious is sending Simon away anyway, to tell the King what’s happened and request an army to come help fight Lazar since the Knights turned traitor. They use the compass which channels sunlight into a needle (which is a totally cool idea) and begin following it.
We cut back to the Knights and Julie where Strangelook is ‘tracking’. Basically he’s tasting blades of grass. Now people say there’s toilet/grossout humour in this movie but I’m going to disagree. Grossout humour is where you put stuff in that’s gross so it’s not really funny, but people are kind of tricked into thinking it’s funny because they’re embarrassed, like the jizzcup bit from American Pie, or the shit/coffee bit from Austin Powers 2.
Now here, Strangelook eats a blade of grass and says “one of them pissed here”. That’s not gross. That’s an experienced tracker at work. This is not nearly gross enough to qualify as grossout. I didn’t get grossed out, and it wasn’t particularly funny. It was just a thing that happened. Anyway, this reveals our heroes are walking into a forest controlled by someone called “Mateetee”, and predict their certain doom.
In the next scene our heroes are in the woods and Thadeous is expressing his doubts that Fabious’ “pure” bride to be is going to be so pure once they get to her. Fabious refuses to consider the possibility that Lazar will “get her cookies” first. Fabious starts to get agitated but Thadeous gets distracted by a nearly naked women in white body paint. She seems to be beckoning him, and not finding this at all suspect, he follows after her. We get a brief shot of him chasing her off into the woods. Suddenly, there’s nearly-nude white body painted women everywhere and our heroes are captured.
In the next shot, our heroes and three others (one mysteriously masked figure and two figurative redshirts) are being forced into a pen that is clearly a small arena. There’s white body painted people all around banging on the sides of the cage. A big fat guy approaches a throne above the arena on one side flanked by an escort of eight or so naked women. This is apparently Mateetee. Mateetee gets a lot of scenery-chewing screen time in the next few minutes, but this is probably mainly because they paid for a lot of topless women and wanted to maximise their investment.
So, our heroes have to fight Mateetee’s champion. A big burly warrior type who’s let into the ring. One of the redshirts tries to charge the warrior, but is effortlessly taken out. Then Fabious has a go, and manages to defeat the warrior after a brief duel, demanding their freedom. Of course, that’s not all there is to it. Mateetee’s servants bring him a big vat of yellow gunk, which looks like a cross between mustard and fat, which he eagerly sinks his hand into. My biggest concern right now was that he was going to eat it, but what actually happens is a five-headed hydra rises out of the ground in the arena.
Fabious bravely attacks the hydra but is bitten on the leg and paralysed, begging Thadeous to suck out the poison. Of course it’s upper thigh and Thadeous refuses, trying to push Fabious’ head down so he can suck himself, etc. Eventually Courtney does it. This joke was done better in City Slickers, but it works ok here too since he actually was bitten (instead of sitting on a cactus) and the imminent threat of the hydra is right there so the urgency doesn't ultimately amount to nothing.
Oh, the hydra also spits acid, which claims the life of our remaining redshirt (remember him?).
While this is going on the mysterious masked stranger flips into action and starts attacking the hydra, severing one of the “heads”. In case you didn’t see this coming, Mateetee screams in pain and pulls his hand out of the pot to reveal he has just lost a finger. This makes the hydra retreat also, which gives our heroes some breathing room. Courtney has apparently finished sucking Fabious’ poison because he spits out some white gunk (Ha!) and they get up and run away, Fabious instantly able to move easily again.
Mateetee sticks his hand back in the pot and attacks with renewed vigour, but the masked stranger easily cuts off three of the remaining four heads. Guess which ‘head’ is remaining when Mateetee pulls his hand out of the pot again? Yep. Mateetee flips our heroes the grisliest bird ever.
The stranger now unmasks themselves and bam, finally, Natalie Portman. Her character’s name is Isabel, and she reveals that Mateetee rounded up and killed her family, and she is here to avenge them.
Mateetee starts to rant about how they’ll pay for this, but Isabel just hurls a spear at him, and he falls face first into the vat. The heroes escape as the entire floor of the arena turns into a face, which screams in pain then goes silent. Again, cool fight, cool effects, well paced, with a few jokes to keep the momentum going. What’s wrong with that? Without the jokes it’d still be a good fight, but less interesting.
So now our heroes are following Isabel, thanking her for “helping”, which is manspeak for “you saved our lives”. Thadeous, eager to impress, begins to tell Isabel about their quest but Fabious interrupts and explains the law of the road – you never reveal your mission because you never know who might be working against you. Wow, it just got dark. Must be another foreshadow passing through the scene. Despite Thadeous’ repulsive attempts at flirtation, Isabel agrees that they can walk in the same direction as her.
We cut to another scene from the trailer where Thadeous is watching Nata- I mean, Isabel get undressed to bathe. Fabious mocks him for perving, Thadeous unconvincingly insists he’s only watching for her safety. She sees them and Thadeous panics, telling Fabious to freeze. They do, because nearly naked women are a lot like T-Rexes. In that men mistakenly believe their sight is based on movement, which is completely incorrect.
Apparently Natalie Portman didn’t really want to do this movie and considering how poorly it did at the box office I guess I don’t blame her, but I think she fits in really well. If I met her and had to say something nice to her, I’d probably say “you were great in Your Highness” and she’d get all pissy because she only signed on because Black Swan was having trouble getting greenlit and she needed money to help finance it. In all fairness though, Black Swan was really good and you should see it (despite it not having as much lesbian sex with Mila Kunis in it as the trailer made you think).
The heroes make camp and Fabious decides to go collect firewood with Courtney to give Thadeous some alone time with Isabel. Thadeous completely fails to impress Isabel so he starts leaking info about their quest in a last ditch effort to sleep with her. He tells her about the only weapon that can defeat Lazar, and the magic compass which is the only way to find said weapon. Isabel does a very poor job of concealing her interest in these objects, and as always you can’t blame the actress for broadcasting this – I’m sure she was told to act exactly like that so the audience would be suspicious and feel smart when she steals the compass later.
Oops, did I say too much?
Thadeous fails to bang Isabel, everyone goes to sleep and the next morning when they wake up the compass is gone. Fabious gets mad at Thadeous for the first time (despite how much of a douchebag he’s been the whole goddamn movie) because now all hope for rescuing Belladonna is lost (remember her?). At a loss for anything else to do they walk to the next town, Fabious hoping they’ll be able to figure something out when the army catches up to them.
Incidentally there’s the odd scene here and there with Lazar talking to Belladonna but they’re not particularly interesting and while there’s some "funny" dialogue these scenes don’t add a lot to the story and are I guess only there to remind us about Belladonna and Lazar while the movie’s busy introducing Isabel. I guess it balances out well but they’re barely worth mentioning.
When the heroes get to a town Fabious goes off to do some non-specific investigating. Thadeous and Courtney go to a tavern where, surprise, they see Isabel. Catching Isabel unawares, Thadeous grabs Isabel from behind and holds her at knifepoint. This leads to this exchange:
Isabel: Is that your cock?
Thadeous: Ha! ‘Tis a knife! But I will gladly penetrate you with it.
which I thought was rather good.
Meanwhile Fabious has run into some old friends, the Knights Elite who reveal they intercepted Simon and upend a sack, the broken down bird tumbling out – so there’s not going to be any backup. Fabious begins to fight with the Knights in a bid to escape, but it’s four on one, so… tough going.
Thadeous and Isabel sit down together and Isabel says the compass doesn’t work – Thadeous unwittingly says she probably didn’t try it in sunlight, then immediately regrets giving away that tidbit. Isabel and Thadeous start a brawl where Thadeous thoroughly gets his butt kicked (he does punch Isabel once but immediately does that “oh my god, I hit a women” reaction where he recoils in horror, which of course results in her hitting him back, harder, and mopping the floor with him). At one point Courtney tackles Isabel and grapples with her but she easily shakes him off. Thadeous at one point is thrown into a big beefy Conan the Barbarian type and while not significant now, you’ll see this guy again.
We cut back to Fabious fighting the knights, and he’s fighting well but is eventually overwhelmed.
Meanwhile with Courtney and Thadeous down, Isabel has escaped. Thadeous starts to despair but Courtney reveals he lifted the compass when he tackled her – apparently he was once kept as a sex slave by gypsies and learned a few things about sleight of hand. Well. Ok then. Just as they rejoice they see the Knights Elite carrying an unconscious Fabious and hide.
Courtney suggests they run but Thadeous finally starts showing a noble side and swears he will continue the quest and rescue his brother – first, they must find the Sword of Unicorn (remember that?).
On the road the next morning they’re ambushed by Isabel who naturally wants the compass back. She explains she is descended from the Golden Knights (remember them?). Her brothers and father were all Knights and were killed by Lazar (I thought Mateetee killed them?). She crafted her arm band (a full length forearm bracer) from their shields as a reminder.
Thadeous explains they’re out to kill Lazar too, and that’s why they need the sword. Didn’t he already explain this? It was already obvious from when they first met that they should be working together, so there’s no reason she should’ve taken the compass to begin with. Sigh. They travel together and come to a cave. There’s some writing in the cave which is in Dwarfish, and Isabel can’t read it. Courtney points out that Thadeous has some familiarity with dwarves (remember that, from all the way back before the opening credits? I honestly didn’t at first, I thought Courtney was making shit up to help Thadeous impress Isabel).
Anyway, Thadeous says the writing is a riddle: “what got you here will get you there”, which he dismisses as nonsense. Isabel realizes the compass got them here so… she finds a convenient hole the compass fits into which opens a hidden passage into a labyrinth. Naturally, where there’s a labyrinth there’s a minotaur. Or David Bowie. But more often, a minotaur.
Everyone runs in different directions. Isabel comes across the minotaur and fires and arrow into it’s chest, but it doesn’t kill it, or much slow it down at all. She runs some more.
Meanwhile, Thadeous has stumbled into a room and passes through a magic barrier. What purpose the barrier serves is unclear, and never alluded to again, but there’s a definite ripple effect in the air as he enters the room. The room has a unicorn skeleton in it, or maybe it’s just a rock with a unicorn horn stuck to it. Anyway, Thadeous tugs on the horn and pulls out what seems to be a spine.
Apparently he’s as unimpressed as I am because he bangs it on the stone and most of the bones fall away to reveal a gleaming (but still kind of cheap looking) sword. I can tell it’s supposed to be impressive though, so I’ll assume it’s the real thing and not a fakeout. Then the wall starts talking to him, and tells him only a true hero can take the sword. He immediately says he’s NOT a true hero and offers to put it down and walk away.
The wall opens a portal showing his home, and visions of him as king, powerful, with all the wine, weed and women he could ever want, all he has to do is walk through. He looks greedily into the portal…
Then we cut to Courtney being assraped by the minotaur. Seriously. I mean I guess it’s probably just dryhumping because Courtney seems to be coping rather well, but then again he did used to be a sex slave, right? Isabel comes along and notches another arrow, which causes the minotaur to stop humping Courtney and approach Isabel, and you can clearly see it’s cock and balls swinging from side to side as it walks towards her. Now I know how my wife feels when she seems me stepping out of the shower.
Then swish, minotaur gets stabbed like a bitch. Thadeous proudly strides forward and announces he found the sword, and he came back for them. Courtney asks “you were going to leave?!” which Thadeous brushes off and it’s never touched upon again. No discussion of him overcoming his temptation for a greater good, not even any mention of the talking wall or the portal. I think an opportunity was missed here, but hey, I’m not the one making movies, so maybe I’m wrong.
Then Thadeous starts using the sword to saw at one of the minotaur’s horns.
Isabel: What are you doing?
Thadeous: I’m taking a horn as a trophy.
Isabel: You can’t cut the horn of a minotaur, everyone knows that.
Thadeous: Hmm…
If you guessed that in the next scene Thadeous has a minotaur penis on a string which he’s wearing around his neck, award yourself five points. If you guessed that it stays there for the rest of the movie, award yourself twenty points. Yep, Danny McBride was really committed to this minotaur penis bit, you have to give him that.
Ok, we’re on the home stretch. Thadeous is determined to rescue his brother but they need help quickly, so it’s montage time. They go back to the village and we see Thadeous shaking hands with the Conanesque guy from before. Courtney finds the scrapped remains of Simon and arranges for him to be repaired. There’s a nice voiceover narration from Thadeous as he talks about righting old wrongs, making new allies, forgiving old enemies, etc. It’s actually an ok moment.
So, they now have Simon fixed up and the barbarian dude traveling with them, and they’re all kitted out for the final battle. They sneak into Lazar’s tower and Thadeous, channeling his old self, suggest someone else lead the way because he did all the work with the sword & minotaur. Conanesque takes point, immediately triggers a trap that stabs him through the gut, and he dies. RIP Conanesque. We hardly knew ye.
We get a scene of Lazar taunting Fabious who’s being whipped by Julie. He’s also in some kind of harness above a spike. Lazar tells him while he’s busy penetrating Belladonna (seriously, remember her?), a servant will lower him so the spike penetrates him. As far as medieval era torture goes, Fabious is getting off pretty light. Is this supposed to be grossing me out yet?
So Lazar goes upstairs, the moons are aligning, Belladonna is struggling. Lazar is having trouble getting it up with all her shrieking so his ‘mothers’ put a spell on her to make her more docile but actually makes her act like the girl from the Exorcist. Good thing she’s restrained.
I’m going to rush through this last bit because it’s all fighty fighty and describing fight scenes is tedious.
Lazar is trying to fuck Belladonna but he can’t get it up, claiming he’s just not attracted to her. Seriously man, Zooey Deschanel chained to a bed and you can’t get it up? Maybe they were implying Lazar is gay or something, but I’m sure there’s a lot of gay dudes who’d still be able to get it up for Zooey Deschanel.
Our heroes rush up the stairs and encounter the Knights Elite. Fabious duels with Boremont and severs his prosthetic arm (which has a pop-out blade) then runs him through with it. Dying, Boremont reveals he turned on Fabious because he was going to marry Belladonna, and he always “loved him”.
Fabious: You mean as a knight loves his brother knight?
Boremont: No, as a man loves another man.
Fabious: …oh.
After which Boremont dies. Awkwaaaaard.
Thadeous tries to free Belladonna, and she responds by trying to suck the minotaur cock hanging from his nick. Because she’s possessed to be super horny, I guess. Lazar blasts him away and tries to rape Belladonna some more, but still can’t get it up.
Isabel fights the witches, repelling their magic with her armband (forged from the shields of her brothers, the Golden Knights, in case you forgot), and then kicks them – she literally kicks the third one into the second one, making them merge, the then second into the first, which she then kills. So I guess they can only be killed when they’re unseperated? As I said at the beginning of this review, it’s never explained.
Fabious confronts Lazar, who laughs because he can’t be harmed by mortal weapons. Fabious reveals it’s the Sword of Unicorn and Lazar just stands there and spends a good five seconds looking scared before Fabious stabs him, instead of trying to defend himself or something.
Lazar explodes. They rescue Belladonna.
Afterwards Isabel parts company with the heroes, saying she has other quests to fulfill. Thadeous tries to offer her the minotaur penis as a reminder of him, but understandably she declines. She leaves. They go home. Fabious and Belladonna marry. The King is proud of Thadeous for the first time ever. Thadeous goes to bed and prepares to jerk off when Fabious bursts in to announce he went on a “mini-quest” to rescue Steve the iguana (remember him)?
After Fabious leaves, Thadeous goes to put Steve in the corner while he “strums his filthies” and at that moment Isabel walks in. she’s done with her quest, but has another – she opens her robe to reveal her metal thong is actually a chastity belt, placed on her by an evil witch, and requests Thadeous’ help to go slay the witch and break the curse.
Thadeous isn’t much up for more questing and looks set to decline, but changes his mind when Isabel suggests the alternative is to “stay in and just snuggle”.
The End.
Apparently this movie was intended to have a sequel if it did well enough (it didn’t), so I don’t know if this was supposed to be a setup for that or not. Could they make a whole movie out of hunting down a witch to remove a cursed chastity belt? Possibly, maybe. Then again I find it unlikely Natalie Portman would sign on for a sequel so it’s more likely she’d be given the same longevity as a Bond girl and disappear between films to be replaced by a new love interest.
All in all, I don’t think this was at all a bad movie – there was real character growth, and you could relate to the characters for the most part, as they were driven by a combination of noble and personal motivations, and reacted realistically to messed up situations. I know that was more or less the gimmick, but in so many movies when weird shit happens people seldom step back and say “well what the fuck was that?” That’s the part of this movie I was most looking forward to based on the trailers, and that it delivered in spades. Were my expectations set too low? I prefer to say my expectations were realistic.
At the very least, the movie didn’t bore me. That’s the worst crime a movie can commit, when the events become tedious or dull or when a comedy is so plainly unfunny that there is no value in watching it at all. This was never the case here and while it never produced any laugh out loud moments for me, very few movies do.
