Royal Slush

Rating: 2/10 (9 January 2012)

If one needs proof that Americans have an inferiority complex when it comes to anything stamped "Made in the UK", look no further than this steaming pile of pretentiousness which gets my vote as the worst Best Picture ever.
Here's a bit of info I picked up in Film Appreciation 101: in order for there to be drama, there must be conflict. The "conflict" in The King's Speech is the bitchy (and probably gay) archbishop learning that the speech therapist treating the Duke of York (aka Bertie) is an unqualified quack! Well, I knew that when the quack had Bertie rolling around on the floor screeching like a banshee!
And this will come as a shock to these twits, but Edward's hook-up with Wallis Simpson was more than a quickie at the Quickie Mart. But instead of being given an idea of the turmoil triggered by their liaison, we get Edward acting like the petulant Golden Boy forced to marry the Coyote Ugly he banged in Daddy's Caddie. The reason for the opposition was because she was divorced, or as Daddy puts it, "has two husbands who are living still". Would he have felt better if they were dead?
To say the characters are two-dimensional is an insult to two-dimensional characters. Bertie is a repressed wuss with Daddy issues. Edward is a feckless wuss with Daddy issues. Logue (the quack) is an elitist wuss with Daddy issues. Bertie babbles like Lenny Bruce on an acid trip whenever he gets his knickers into a bunch. I seriously doubt that ever happened. Ditto, Bertie and Mrs. Bertie being allowed to leave the confines of their gilded cage without so much as a Bobby in tow.
But what really made me want to hurl was the whole German thing. Logue advises Bertie not come to the throne as King Albert because "Albert" sounds too German. Bertie did not come to the throne as King Albert because Queen Victoria declared that no successor be crowned as King Albert out of regard for Prince Albert.
By the way, Victoria and Albert were - you guessed it - German!