The King’s Speech Blu-ray Review

Directed by Tom Hooper (John Adams), the 2010 Oscar winner for Best Picture The King’s Speech centers on Royal Family member Albert Fredrick Arthur George (Colin Firth), also known as the Duke of York. While pampered and privileged, one could say that Albert doesn’t exactly lead the happiest of lives. His father (Michael Gambon) is constantly pressuring him to stop living in the shadow of his older, scandal-courting brother David (Guy Pearce) and start becoming more of a public figure and leader. Thanks to a debilitating speech impediment the Duke has suffered from since childhood, doing so is a task much easier said (no pun intended) than done.

When the numerous attempts by knighted doctors to help him overcome his stuttering fail, Albert’s wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham-Carter) decides to take the matter into her own hands. Enter Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian immigrant that is a rather unorthodox speech therapist. At first, Logue’s methods are met with resistance from Albert (and that is putting it mildly). But over time as the two begin to form a friendship, Logue’s therapy eventually does begin to make an impact. It’s a good thing for the Duke that they do: his father has passed away and David, who is next in line, abdicates the throne faster than he takes it when he decides he would rather run off with a married American woman than he would run an empire. As if having to take the throne wasn’t enough of a trauma for Albert to deal with, there is also the threat of war looming largely in the European horizon.


Hooper does a commendable job with his directing, nicely balancing the dramatic and humorous with equal measure. The opening scene that sets up Albert’s dilemma is genuinely heartbreaking without being overly manipulative. The film’s concluding big speech, in which Albert (now King George VI) rallies the British Empire for war, is both inspirational and quite powerful (Hooper’s use of Beethoven’s Symphony no 7- II is a cinematic coup de grace). With the help of Alexandre Desplat’s wonderful music score, Danny Cohen’s unique camerawork and Eve Stewart’s detailed production design, Hooper also meticulously recreates pre-WWII England and its vastly different worlds of class.

But the greatest triumph the filmmaker pulls off here is undoubtedly his handling of the terrific cast. Just as Helen Mirren did in 2006’s The Queen, Firth strips away the royal airs of his noble character to give us a humanized, flawed individual one can easily sympathize and empathize with. Geoffrey Rush is every bit Firth’s equal and gives a remarkable performance. The chemistry between the two is absolutely terrific. The duo work so well together that you would figure they have been working together for years. Carter is also quite good as Elizabeth, acquitting herself quite nicely in the smallest of the three main roles.

Yet for all its strengths, and there are quite a few, The King’s Speech falls just shy of greatness. In the end it feels more serviceable than unique. The fault lies in David Seidler’s Oscar-winning screenplay. It’s not that the script is awful, far from it. The dialogue is sharp and often very funny and the characters and subject matter are handled with great respect. No, it’s the aura of predictability that hangs over the movie like a cloud of smoke that holds the film back just a bit. It doesn’t take a degree in Royal History to figure out what is going to happen to whom and how it’s going to happen. This may be a case of nitpicking on my part but when you give a film Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, it better be something all around truly special rather than just being really, really good. Given the awful output of motion pictures last year, perhaps being good was good enough for the Academy.

High-Def Presentation

The King’s Speech arrives on Blu-ray from Anchor Bay Entertainment with a transfer that is somewhat of a give and take. At times, the 1.78:1 AVC-encoded transfer is very impressive. Colors are rich, black levels deep, picture detail spot on and film grain nicely preserved. But then there are other times where the image is drab and flat, with skin tones that appear downright pasty. Overall, I would say the picture quality is acceptable for home viewing. Just use something else as a home theater demo.

The picture is backed by a 5.1 DTS HD-Master Audio track that more than gets the job done. While it doesn’t possess the sonic assault something like TRON: Legacy does, the track does offer up crystal clear center-channel dialogue and some nice stereo separation in the right and left fronts. The rear channels even offer up a bit of activity from time to time. As far as I could tell, very little if any subwoofer activity is detectable.

Beyond the Feature

Given that the film is based on historical fact, was a big box office and multi-Oscar winner, one would have expected a bit more out of the supplemental material section for The King’s Speech. What we get instead is a bonus section that is adequate but could have been so much more. Given how studios have scaled back on extras these days (Hello, Tron: Legacy!), I doubt we will see a double-dip anytime soon. Fortunately, one of the extras is not that ridiculous PG-13 version The Weinstein Company released a few weeks ago to theaters. With the exception of two supplements, all bonus features are presented in 480p Standard Definition.

Audio Commentary by Director Tom Hooper – The best of the bonus material, this is a thorough and informative audio track with the Oscar winner. It’s a solid mix of historical and production information that viewers who enjoyed the film will definitely wish to check out.

An Inspirational Story of An Unlikely Friendship (480p, 23 minutes) – A promotional feature that includes interviews with cast and crew that was most likely assembled last fall as the movie began its release across the country. It is a typical electronic press kit bit that is worth watching for the interviews.

Q&A With the Director and Cast (1080i, 22 minutes) – Director Tom Hooper and cast members Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Claire Bloom and Guy Pearce join KCRW’s Matt Holzman for a Q&A session.

Speeches From the Real King George VI (8 minutes) – The real-life King George VI’s radio broadcast from September 3, 1939 is presented in its entirety, as is the May 1945 newsreel post-war speech.

The Real Lionel Logue Highlights (480p, 10 minutes) – A brief interview with Mark Logue, Lionel Logue’s grandson and co-author of ‘The King’s Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy.’ He speaks about his grandfather as well as the relationship Lionel Logue had with Prince Albert.

Public Service Announcement for the Stuttering Foundation (one minute) – Usually, I am against placing public service announcements on Blu-rays. At least the ones that have nothing to do with the movie they share the disc with. However, I applaud Anchor Bay and the Weinstein Company for including this brief but quite effective spot for the National Stuttering Foundation. Not really an ‘extra’ per se, but definitely something that belongs here.

When Hollywood has a period where wave after wave of mediocrity and outright crap fill the multiplexes, critics and moviegoers tend to over-praise the films that actually are a few notches above the average. A lot of people felt that way about Christopher Nolan’s Inception and David Fincher’s The Social Network. This is the how I felt about The King’s Speech. I admire and respect it and even think that certain aspects are truly great. But when all is said and done and the end credits began to roll, it came across as a solid if unspectacular piece of commercial entertainment.

The same can be said about Anchor Bay’s Blu-ray release: it gets the job done but could have been better. It offers up a decent audio/video presentation and supplements that favor quality over quantity, making it a recommended purchase for the film’s many fans. If you haven’t seen the film yet and are curious as to what all the praise has been about, give it a rent first and temper your expectations just the slightest bit.

– Shawn Fitzgerald

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