21. Stardust

Director: Matthew Vaughn (2007)

Starring: Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mark Strong

Find it: IMDB

A very adult fairytale from the team that brought you Kick-Ass (director Matthew Vaughn and writer Jane Goldman) and a certain Neil Gaiman. Starring Mark Strong with a disconcerting amount of hair, the wonderful Michelle Pfeiffer as an evil witch and Robert De Niro in a dress. Naive young romantic Tristan Thorn (Cox) is in love with Victoria (Sienna Miller) whose heart he promises to win by retrieving a fallen star from a faraway land. Only the falling star happens to be an actual girl named Yvaine (Danes) who doesn't want to be anybody's gift. Evil witch Lamia (Pfeiffer) needs to eat Yvaine's heart to be young again, whilst Septimus (Strong) needs her to become king of the land. Phew.

An adult but not puerile fairytale, Stardust is a joy. It's so packed full of stars that the IMDB doesn't know who to list first. Especially so if you're British. A good 60 or so percent is made up of English actors and comedians, all of whom hit the spot. Unless their name is Ricky Gervais, whereupon it's a bit embarrassing. Stardust was made during a period in which Gervais would cameo in anything, his appearances becoming more and more cringeworthy. Ricky Gervais is 2007's James Corden.

Stardust is a lovely movie, designed to warm the heart as much as it is to thrill and amuse. The writing/directorial partnership of Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn is a strong one, and they bring us distinct, likeable characters as they did with the later Kick-Ass. Even the villains are sympathetic. I want a jacket like Mark Strong's. Michelle Pfeiffer looks just as hot now as she did in Batman Returns. Rupert Everett is thrown out of a window as a host of British comedians look on.

I even like the song by Take That. Which is not something one is supposed to admit in public; not unless you're a 40-year-old woman, anyway.

Conan The Barbarian

Director: Marcus Nispel (2011)

Starring: Jason Momoa, Stephen Lang, Rachel Nichols, Rose McGowan

Find it: IMDB

Charmless barbarian Conan (Momoa) roams dingy deserts and dingy cities with a big sword, hoping to kill the men who murdered his father (Ron Perlman) with it. He learns some lessons in humility when he runs into Tamara (Nichols) the 'pureblood' girl villains Zim (Lang) and Marique (McGowan) are trying to sacrifice. The poor girl is essentially kidnapped from the moment we meet her (even by Conan) until the end of the movie. Her story just skips from one kidnapping to the next. Also, comedy misogyny. Sure, when I gag a girl with her own dress and tell her to STFU and go to sleep, it's considered bastardly. But when Conan does it, it's all sweet and romantic and shit. One rule for the barbarians...

Conan is the least interesting person in his own movie. Hunky actor Jason Momoa has a nice set of abs and a kick-ass pair of guns, but no presence. Arnold Schwarzenegger might not be able to act (unless you like Terminators) but the man had charisma. And he punches a camel. Momoa hits a horse with a big chain, but doesn't punch any camels and certainly doesn't have charisma. Conan is supposed to be quite the ladies man, but he just comes across here as a sulky tit. For someone whose motto is supposed to be about loving life and having lots of sex, Conan doesn't seem to enjoy any of it much. Conan is an arrogant misogynist - and I'm not complaining about that, it sort of fits the character - but can't back it up with anything other than being quite good at stabbing people. And even that, he doesn't really seem to enjoy.

Everyone else fares a lot better. Nichols, despite being little other than a Damsel In Distress and required only to look pretty, be tied up and dangle off things, is easy to empathise with. When the lead character is so dull and unlikeable, you can't help but look elsewhere. Lang and McGowan are wonderful. Lang does creepy and sinister and angry really well, whilst McGowan gets to wear a Freddy Krueger glove and look at once sultry and horrible.

The action sequences, too, are brilliant. There's a big action scene every ten minutes or so, ensuring that Conan at least isn't boring. I particularly enjoyed a bit of nasal torture with Conan and the fat guy from Bottom. There's a nice fight with a giant tentacle monster thing, which I would like to have seen a bit more of, and the opening quarter (basically, everything before Momoa turns up) is the best of the whole movie. Even Morgan Freeman turns up to narrate something. Ron Perlman is reliably good as Conan's pa, although somehow he looks like Will Ferrell in this film.

I enjoyed Conan, but nowhere near as much as I should have. It's humourless, too dingy - too much like a less penile version of Your Highness - and its lead actor is a charisma vortex of glares and punching. It's improved tenfold by its villains and action sequences, but is nothing like it could have been.

Season Of The Witch

Director: Dominic Sena (2011)

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy, Stephen Graham

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Swords n' sorcery, Nicolas Cage style. Two deserter Crusaders return to their homeland, which they find devastated by the Black Plague. Whilst Sean Bean is off looking to Tim McInnerny to solve the problem (see the imaginatively titled Black Death), Nicolas Cage tackles things the only way he knows how: by having bad hair and beating up on medieval women. This time he does so accompanied by the epic Ron Perlman and a grubby Stephen Graham.

Despite being a more serious movie, Season Of The Witch puts one in mind of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. It feels like a throwback to the Hammer movies of old, complete with a welcome cameo from one Christopher Lee. It's a very simplistic man-on-a-mission film, the likes of which seem all too rare these days. The casting of Nic Cage and Ron Perlman as brothers in arms is inspired. The chemistry is understated (some might say almost non-existent) but I love both actors unreservedly. Their pairing works well, and it's always good to see Ron Perlman at the forefront of a movie. Supporting actors such as Stephen Graham and Stephen Campbell Moore do well too, and even young Robert Sheehan (who I hated in Misfits) pulls his weight.

The Knights, a choirboy and a monk travel across Plague infected England, delivering their witch (Foy) to a remote Monastery, where the Monks hope to use her to stop the Plague's spread. I'm not sure how exactly, nor whether 14th Century Christians had the concept of a "fair trial" which Cage preaches, but the whole thing is just a plot device to get these men on their mission. Along the way they encounter such perils as rickety bridges, their conniving witch and dodgy CGI wolves.

Season Of The Witch takes itself more seriously than it should, especially when the predictable endgame resembles a scene cut from Van Helsing. But it's an enjoyable bit of period nonsense, with Messrs Cage and Perlman in fine fettle.

Your Highness 8===D

Director: David Gordon Green (2011)

Starring: Zooey Deschanel. Also, other people.

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Were I still between thirteen to fifteen years old, I'm sure I would have loved Your Highness and its particular brand of penis related humour. As it is, I'm twenty-four years old and merely liked Your Highness. Quite a lot, but not as much as I would have if it were to bother with more than just two punchlines.

Thadeous (Danny McBride) and Fabious (James Franco) are a pair of regal brothers; one dashing and brave, the other rude and cowardly. You can probably guess which is which. Just for shits and giggles, I'd have liked to see things the other way round. But ho, McBride does rude and cowardly very well, so we'll let him have that one. Fabious goes on quests and battles wizards and is very much the toast of his kingdom. Thadeous isn't. After a particularly successful quest, Fabious returns with the virginal Princess Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) in tow. No sooner have they announced their engagement than Belladonna is kidnapped by evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux). Fabious sets off on a quest to rescue his bride. This time accompanied by Thadeous, who must prove his worth for some reason never quite explained.

Never mind all that. The plot here is just a vague template from which to hang much swearing and copious penis jokes. It's like Lord Of The Rings meets Superbad only with slightly less wit. Whereas David Gordon Green's brilliant Pineapple Express was an action movie with stoner jokes, Your Highness is a fantasy movie with penis jokes. Where Pineapple Express was fun whether you were stoned or not, I'd suggest puffing on a few biftas before attempting Your Highness. I think that's what the title might be getting at. Although there are a lot less weed jokes than I'd expected.

I'm not overstating the knob jokes either. Almost every joke I care to remember is cock-related. And the rest are reliant on either Danny McBride swearing or Danny McBride being scared of stuff. Thankfully I'm an enormous fan of McBride, and it's good to see the chap take a starring role in a mainstream comedy like this. Franco is good too, although it's hard to tell whether the crap English accent is crap on purpose, or if he's just incapable. I'd like to think the former. Either way, he's a likeable presence, bringing the same chummy affability to the role as he did in Pineapple Express. But not Spider-man. He sucks Goblin balls in that movie.

Good as its lead duo are, Your Highness is almost stolen by Rasmus Hardiker as Thadeous's assistant, Courtney. It's an understated performance, almost a straight man role, but the lad's very likeable and will hopefully go far in Hollywood comedy. Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel perhaps fare the worst of everyone. Portman arrives too late into the game to be seen as a viable love interest (that, and then she disappears for about twenty minutes afterwards) whilst Deschanel gets hardly anything to do except play Damsel In Distress with a bad English accent. Now you if know the Review Hole, you'll know we quite like Damsels In Distress and we love Zooey Deschanel, but she really doesn't have enough to do here.

Your Highness is such a lads' flick that there's not really much room for the ladies. After all, ladies don't have penises. And Your Highness is all about the penises.

But what I've failed to mention is that Your Highness is funny. So funny that I almost forgot to notice the lack of Deschanel screentime. There are fun fight scenes, Danny McBride swearing copiously, Natalie Portman in a bikini (and, for the ladies, James Franco's biceps), Damian Lewis being less shit than usual, minotaur penis, Zooey Deschanel and Zooey Deschanel. That's more than you can say for Lord Of The Rings.