The King's Speech Review

Let me start out by saying that this is a good movie. It looks pretty; the acting is uniformly solid, in the instance of Geoffrey Rush, even transcendent; and the story is compelling and well-written. But I'm still just bugged by this notion that because it happened to a royal, or a rich, famous, and powerful person, it's inherently more interesting. It's like, why not make a movie about Angelina Jolie's astigmatism? Cause let's face it, nobody would ask us to sit through two hours about some dude's speech impediment if it wasn't supposed to be so important and British and blah, blah, blah who cares, really? It's stuttering, it's not pancreatic cancer.

I had a hard time buying Colin Firth as the younger brother of Guy Pearce in this movie, too. I thought both of them were great in their roles, but Firth does not look or act like a man who would be intimidated by, and younger than, Pearce. One of the roles should have been recast for that to work, I think.

There's a scene late in the movie where Firth is going on some tirade about how Rush's character isn't qualified, and then he turns around, and look! That cheeky Rush is daring to sit in his throne, impertinent grin on his face. It's scenes like that in movies that remind me of what this little 1st grader I used to tutor said about another little girl..."She think she cute". The King's Speech sure thought it was cute right there, boy. I felt like the movie really "think it's cute" too in the scene where Rush's wife discovers the royals in her home. I guess what I'm struggling to say is that too much of this movie felt like manufactured, "How charming!" moments to me. It's just so....Oscar bait-y.

All in all, I have to put this one pretty far down my list this year, maybe 9th or even 10th. But it's still totally going to win tonight. And I can live with that, because it certainly doesn't suck. It's just the opposite of inventive.