Ralph's Movie Reviews: THE KING’S SPEECH

Sunday, December 12, 2010

THE KING’S SPEECH

Historical drama
Based on true facts

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Michael Gambon: King George V of England
Claire Bloom: the queen consort Queen Mary
Colin Firth: their second son Prince Albert the Duke of York
Helena Bonham Carter: Albert’s wife Elizabeth
Geoffrey Rush: speech thearpist Lionel Logue
Guy Pearce: Albert’s older brother Prince David the heir apparent Duke of Windsor
Timothy Spall: First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill
Derek Jacobi: the Archbishop of Canterbury
Eve Best: Mrs. Wallis Simpson

REVIEW
I sat mesmerized by two fascinating performances, that of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. Each in their own way had a difficult role to play and they both nailed it. The rest of the cast are no slouch but these two are the best of the bunch.

An extremely enjoyable film the well-written script has quite a few humorous quips to keep the proceedings from getting too serious. The director has wisely chosen to allow adequate screen time for some scenes albeit at the expense of adding to the running time of nearly two hours: like a good wine, some things cannot be hurried.

The British are the best at period pieces and this is no exception with beautiful cinemaphotography, elaborate sets and perfect costuming.

CLASSIFICATION

(in Canada) for some language.

Because there is one scene in which the future king is encouraged by his therapist to let loose with a string of obscenities as a form of liberating speech therapy the Motion Picture Association of America has slapped a R rating on the film. This puts it in the same category as scary horror movies and blood-soaked pornography-torture films like Saw 3D for example. How silly is that?

The British Board of Film Classification at first imposed a 15 certificate on the movie, thereby denying youngsters under that age the right to see it, but then relented by giving it a 12 A rating, which is the equivalent of a PG-13 in North America.

One thing to keep in mind: there is not one teenager out there who would be offended by this language and very few adults.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.