The King's Speech: 7/10

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2011)

The fact that this film fails to impress me does surprise myself, the accumulating buzz in the upcoming Oscar can only explain one thing, that some people don't want to see a sweep of THE SOCIAL NETWORK, which will definitely cause the whole Oscar game way too predictable, so they select one out of other nine BEST PICTURE-nominated films, and keep everybody by rivaling these two so-called frontrunners.
In my personal list, currently THE SOCIAL NETWORK is my No.3 of the year, INCEPTION and THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT are my No.1 and No.2 respectively. After watching this film, I must confess that I am 90% sure BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR will go to TSN.
TKS is a solid film, an unparalleled stammer performance from Colin Firth, which will endow him with his first Oscar in the BEST ACTOR category (I love Colin, but he should win last year with A SINGLE MAN instead of this one). Geoffrey Rush is strong but patchy in his co-leading role (typically not a supporting role, anyway category fraud does attenuate Oscar's halo), his insidious eyes and cartoonish appearance emancipated a rather uncomfortable perception to me and it's hard to believe he was not playing a vicious villain. As Helena Bonham Carter, her self-restrained acting, on the contrary, becomes my favorite in the film, she could be a potential dark horse in the Oscar race. Guy Pearce and Jennifer Ehle both offer some nuance in spite of their limited screen-time.
As a whole, the film is an exquisite design, almost everything is on a high-class level, except the empathy, I feel no emotional turbulence all along the time, every twist is stock, It was as if I was watching a chic play (without involuntary affection at all) as the same time I don't care what was happening in the film, which I was too placid to care. In my opinion, the mordant script is the most award-worthy one among all its nominations.
I felt baffled after watching the film, because I don't think my taste is so far away from others (judging by previous experience of course), how come this time TKS truly disappointed me so much? Maybe a re-watch? I don't know by now.