The King's Speech (Blu-ray)

Blu-Ray Quality/Special Features

In response to a couple of people complaining that I did not review the special features and the blu-ray quality I decided to add this bit in to keep everyone happy. I did not add it in before as it completely slipped my mind, I do not tend to bother with the special features as when I buy a dvd (or blu-ray) strangely enough I buy it so I can watch the film. ;)

So, we watched the film on our PS3, which is the only blu-ray player we have. The picture quality was as you would expect with a blu-ray pretty good. This might not be much of a description but to be honest I do not get all excited over being able to see someone's nose hair clearer! Whether something is normal definition or high definition does not sway my opinion on whether or not I will watch it, if anything I tend to avoid Blu-Rays as I prefer normal DVD's.

As for the special features on the disc, there are a few. There is the expected commentary with Tom Hooper, which, if you are interested in his commentary then it is worth a look. There is also "An Inspirational Story Of An Unlikely Friendship - The Making Of The Kings Speech" again, if it is your thing then it is worth a watch.

One that did interest me was the interview with Mark Logue, Lionel Logue's grandson.

There were some speeches from the real King George VI, which again interested me as it was interesting to hear him for real. One of the speeches was in the actual film.

There were also production sketches and a photo gallery with a look behind the scenes. Not really my thing but an interesting feature nonetheless.

So that is it for the special features of the disc itself.

About The Film

The Kings Speech is a British historical drama film that tells the story of King George VI’s battle against his speech impediment with the help of an Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue.

Right from the start of the film you feel a little bit sorry for him as he is shown trying to make a public speech, and stammering all the way through it. He even struggles to read a bedtime story to his young daughters. It appears that he has tried to get help for his stammer from many doctors over the years, who have tried various different methods, including smoking and putting marbles in his mouth. None of the previous methods have worked and he still continues to stammer, as he has since he was a young boy.

His wife Elizabeth introduces him to an Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue with whom he initially struggles to get along with. Throughout the film Lionel teaches him various methods to control his stammer which, after his initial refusal to try them appear to work. The methods themselves are funny to watch as we see him singing and swearing loudly.

His relationship with Logue has many ups and downs as the King gets frustrated with his stammer and takes it out on Logue, who remains loyal to him throughout.
The climax of the film shows the product of all the hard work the King and Logue put into his therapy and it is a very emotional ending.

I do not want to say too much about the actual film itself as I do not want to spoil it for those of you who have not seen it yet.

Main Cast

King George VI – Colin Firth
Lionel Logue – Geoffrey Rush
Queen Elizabeth – Helena Bonham Carter
King Edward VIII – Guy Pearce
King George V – Michael Gambon
Winston Churchill – Timothy Spall
Wallis Simpson – Eve Best
Princess Elizabeth – Freya Wilson
Princess Margaret – Ramona Marquez
Queen Mary – Claire Bloom

Price and Availability

You can buy the film new on Amazon for £19.35 on DVD and £9.99 on Blu-ray. There are a lot of copies of it for sale on the website. As for high street stores, I am not sure as I have not looked. I would imagine it is readily available in stores that predominantly sell DVD’s and the like. Probably not as easily available in smaller stores that mainly sell the most recent DVD’s.

My Thoughts

Personally I hate doing movie reviews as much as I hate doing book reviews, purely because it is hard to figure out what to write without giving away too much of the plot and ruining it for those who have yet to see/read it. Admittedly that is not so much of an issue with this film as it is based on a historical figure so everyone tends to know what happened anyway. At least, that is usually the case with these types of films. For example it is ok if you are doing a review on World War Two to say that we won, as we already know that anyway so it does not spoil anything. As for this film however, we may already know what happened when the King made his speech, but until seeing the film we would not know exactly how it happened as it was not done in public.

I have been told ever since the film came out to watch it as it is really good, and I kept putting it off as it is not the type of film I would usually watch. I do like historical films, but I prefer ones that go further back than this one. I am not generally interested in anything from that era. I decided to watch the film at last when I came across it on here whilst looking for something to review. So I got the film and decided to watch it.

It is a pretty good film, for its kind. Not the best historical drama I have ever seen, but not the worst either. There were a few moments throughout the film when I struggled to keep my attention on it, but for the majority of the film I was engrossed and interested in seeing how it would play out.

I thought the actors they chose for the lead roles were great choices, and they all played their parts well. I especially liked the choice of Michael Gambon as George V; he is a great actor and fitted the role perfectly. It’s just a shame that he was not in the film for very long. I was quite surprised at how many actors there were in the film who were also in the Harry Potter films; it is hard to watch it with these actors in it as I was constantly comparing them to their Harry Potter characters. As for Geoffrey Rush, well I hate seeing him in any other films than The Pirates of the Caribbean films as in my eyes he IS Captain Barbosa, I kept expecting him to launch into his Barbosa accent throughout the film!

My Recommendations

I would recommend this film to my friends, and to anybody else who asked my opinion about it. Even if it is not your usual genre of film, it is worth watching as you may find yourself pleasantly surprised at your opinions of the film after you have seen it; I know I was surprised as I genuinely did not think that I would like the film.