HBO's 'The Prince' Animated TV Series: A Review

HBO’s new animated series ‘The Prince’ ruthlessly cuts the very deserving target of the British royal family down to size.

No doubt delicate viewers will find it repugnant, but the flawed show is funny enough to overcome what some may deem offensive.

HBO’s new aggressively irreverent animated series The Prince, which debuted on HBO Max on July 29th, sets its comedy sights on the target rich environment of the British royal family and relentlessly fires a ferocious fusillade of mockery at the monarchy.

The series, which is made up of twelve, 13-minute episodes and features such notable actors as Orlando Bloom, Allen Cumming and Sophie Turner, was first scheduled to premiere in the spring but HBO pushed that back out of sensitivity regarding Prince Philip’s death in April.

After having watched The Prince, which savagely lampoons all of the royals, I don’t think that deferential gesture will ease any hurt feelings among the Windsors.

The Prince’s caricatures of the royals are relentless and vicious. For instance, the Queen is a cruel, foul-mouthed, farting crime boss, and Prince Philip, a decrepit near cadaver.

Prince Charles is a spineless, big-eared, mealey-mouthed coward who berates his bride Camilla, a horse-faced mute, to get in the good graces of his mother.

Prince William and his wine-hound wife Princess Kate, are absolutely miserable and headed to divorce, are indifferent parents, and are incapable of doing even the most intimate of things without servants.

Speaking of servants, all of the royals are absolutely brutal towards ‘the help’. This is best portrayed by the devoted butler Owen (Allen Cumming), a sad-sack widower, and the two gay butlers, all of whom must delicately navigate the ever-shifting minefield of the monarchy or else find themselves fired…or worse.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are two of the more hysterical royal portrayals on the show, maybe because the caricatures of them seem more realistic due to their being such cartoonish people in real life.  

On The Prince the two of them are living in Melrose Place in Hollywood, and are subtly cross-eyed, which for some reason made me chuckle.

Meghan is a talentless actress and social climber leading the clueless Harry around by the nose, while Harry (voiced by an utterly brilliant Orlando Bloom) is such a dolt he cannot remember the name, or gender, of his baby, is astonished by the magic of refrigerators, and is so dumb as to be virtually unemployable.

That doesn’t stop him from trying though, as he reveals to Meghan that as a little-boy he dreamt of being a massage therapist, to which Meghan replies that as a little girl she too had a dream…of being a princess. A dead-eyed Harry then declares, “you kinda fucked that up”. Yes she did.

Meghan’s acting failures lead her and Harry to the Hollywood gutter of reality tv and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and then she brings reality tv to the royals, which culminates in a fistfight between the Queen and Lisa Rinna over a perceived slight to Ms. Rinna’s husband Harry Hamlin.

Then there’s Meghan and Harry’s HGTV show “Royally Screwed”, where they try and fix up houses on a budget for regular people. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

Considering the roasting Harry and Meghan receive on The Prince it’s no surprise that the show is on HBO as opposed to Netflix, as Harry and Meghan have a deal with Netflix rumored to be worth $100 million, and no doubt flex their royal muscles to squash the series and “protect their brand” if given the chance.

The main protagonist of The Prince though is Prince George, the 8-year-old heir to the throne and son of Prince William and Princess Kate, who is portrayed as an effeminate and obliviously and obnoxiously entitled child.

Prince George is basically Stewie Griffin from Family Guy but just a few years older, which should come as no surprise since the creator of The Prince is Gary Janetti, a writer for Family Guy.

And that is the biggest problem with The Prince, that it’s derivative of Family Guy.

The Prince follows the Family Guy formula with children acting like adults, adults acting like children, an extended musical number, and when mixed with Machiavellian palace intrigue, it all feels like ‘Family Guy Goes to Buckingham Palace’.

That’s not to say that the show isn’t funny, just that it isn’t original.

Some have been offended that The Prince is targeting a real-life 8-year-old, Prince George, with its comedy, and I suppose there’s some legitimacy to that. William and Kate are certainly displeased with the show, but to be honest, and maybe this is the Irish in me, I’ve a very hard time accepting a British royal, regardless of age, as a victim in any circumstance. It’s like with the Oscar winning movie The King’s Speech where we’re supposed to feel bad for the King George VI because he’s some stuttering, muttering jackass. No thank you.

Overall, The Prince is a mindless, quick watch. The episodes are short (13 minutes), don’t ask for much mental effort, and occasionally make you laugh…there are worse things in life. While I found it certainly could’ve been better, I also found it to be funny often enough.  

The best way to judge if The Prince is worth watching is to answer the question, do you like Family Guy? If Family Guy is a bridge too far for you, then The Prince is not a journey worthy of taking. But if you like exceedingly irreverent comedic shots taken at all things royal, then The Prince may very well be your cup of tea.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

The Imitation Game: A Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! THIS IS YOUR OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT!!****

The Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum with screenplay by Graham Moore (based on Andrew Hodges book "Alan Turing: The Enigma"), is the story of Alan Turing, a British mathematician who, during world war two, broke the Nazi's secret enigma code which was a major key in the allies winning the war. Adding to the drama of the story is the fact that Turing is a closeted homosexual at a time when homosexuals were persecuted and prosecuted for their sexual orientation.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the socially inept yet mathematically brilliant Turing. His work here, as always, is consistently solid. Cumberbatch is a very skilled actor, and his portrayal of Turing is finely crafted. Cumberbatch has the very unique ability as an actor, and it is put to good use here, to keep the audience at arm's length yet tantalize them with just enough intimate glances into his character's soul to keep viewers intrigued. His Turing is off-putting yet magnetic, which keeps us rooting for him even when he isn't all that likable. 

Keira Knightley as Turing's co-worker and fiancé, Joan Clarke, is very good in a, not surprisingly, under written role. Clarke's relationship with Turing could have been a goldmine of dramatic intrigue, yet it is never really fleshed out in any meaningful way, which is a disappointment. Knightley has the ability to light up any screen on which she appears, and this film could have used much more of her rather than less.

Mark Strong is one of my favorite actors, and he does his usual superb work as Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies. I also thought Charles Dance as Commander Alistair Denniston was very good. The Brits can really churn out quality actors, and both Dance and Strong are without question living proof of that. (Speaking of Britishness, this film is so thoroughly and distinctly 'British' that my teeth went crooked watching it!!) As for the other supporting actors, though, they were not as strong, and better performances from them would have lifted the film a bit. 

The most conspicuous thing about this film is that it is painfully 'safe', and it's glaring timidity. It is timid and safe in story, dramatically and in it's direction. The film makes the easy commercial choice in narrative, but dramatically, they bury the lede. We know the allies win the war, what we don't know is what happened to Alan Turing and why. In a postscript, the film tells us Alan Turing committed suicide a year after court ordered chemical castration due to a conviction for a homosexual encounter. It is blatantly obvious to me that the film should have started where it ended. That last year of Turing's life is infinitely more important in terms of drama than all the years he spent cracking the Nazi code. I think the 2009 film A Single Man, starring Colin Firth as a gay man contemplating suicide in 1962, is a great example of what The Imitation Game could have been. The intimacy of that portrait in A Single Man, was astounding, as was Firth's performance. I felt that excruciating intimacy was what was missing from The Imitation Game. One can only imagine how agonizing the final year, never mind the final day, of a man as tormented and tortured as Alan Turing could have been. The choice to simply make his suicide a few sentences written on the screen after the movie is over is incomprehensible dramatically, and feels terribly cold-hearted and obtuse. 

I think a wiser choice for a film about Alan Turing would be to start the story with Turing already deep into the Enigma code breaking process, and then we see him succeed and 'win the war'. But then we transition to how his country repaid him for his genius by persecuting him for his sexuality, and then harassed and finally crucified him. Add into this mix his complex and conflicted relationship with Knightley's Clarke, and you have the recipe for a really compelling film with forceful performances from both Cumberbatch and Knightley, who are unquestionably up to task. 

Returning once again to the great Colin Firth, the film that The Imitation Game has been most compared to is the one Firth won a Best Actor Oscar for,  The King's Speech from 2010, which also won the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscar . I understand the comparisons, both are set around the same time period, both are exceedingly mainstream, and both are strikingly British.  The King's Speech is a fine film, not great, but well made and I very much enjoyed it, particularly the acting. The Imitation Game is nowhere near the film The King's Speech is, and neither are the performances, of that there can be no doubt. The comparisons to The King's Speech do The Imitation Game no favors.

In conclusion, The Imitation Game is an achingly safe and straight forward Hollywood film, even though it is unquestionably British. The heroic, yet tragic story of Alan Turing is one that deserved considerably more bravery from the people making it. Solid performances aside, the film fails to live up to the life of the man it is made about, and that is a shame.

© 2015

FOR REVIEWS OF OTHER FILMS RELEASED DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON, PLEASE CLICK ON THESE LINKS TO THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING , WHIPLASH , BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) , FOXCATCHER , WILD , AMERICAN SNIPER , A MOST VIOLENT YEAR , NIGHTCRAWLER , STILL ALICE , INHERENT VICE , SELMA , MR. TURNER , CAKE .