The Queen (2006)
Directed by Stephen Frears
The Queen is an intimate behind the scenes glimpse at the interaction between HM Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair during their struggle, following the death of Diana, to reach a compromise between what was a private tragedy for the Royal family and the public's demand for an overt display of mourning.
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What critics compared The Queen to
Perhaps the best way to describe the way Firth inhabits the character is to recall Helen Mirren's astounding turn in The Queen .
In this sense, The King's Speech is an altogether more significant and ambitious work than Stephen Frears's admirable The Queen of 2006 and far transcends any political arguments about royalty and republicanism.
Working from the British-royalty-biopic template perfected by Peter Morgan ( The Deal , The Queen ), The King’s Speech provides a cute, complication-free portrait of the Duke of York (Colin Firth), who would eventually become King George VI of England, and his difficulty overcoming a lifelong stammer.
Like The Queen (2006) , its a story about the effect of ordinary people on the vitality of the monarchy and, specifically in the case of The Kings Speech , how a sympathetic teacher befriended a reluctant king and helped him overcome his fears and disabilities to help lead the free world to victory over Hitler and his Nazi army.
A somber monologue to a deer, late in the movie, in the midst of what feels like a complete dead end in the investigation, seems ready-made to be her Oscar reel—just as a similar moment , featuring an encounter with a stag in the countryside, was Helen Mirren’s Oscar reel for The Queen.
The Queen (2006) depicted a matter-of-fact Elizabeth II who fixed car engines.
The malevolent leader of this Italian faction is Aro (Michael Sheen from "Frost/Nixon" and "The Queen") and his menacing minion is Jane (a nearly unrecognizable Dakota Fanning from "The Secret Life of Bees" and "War of the Worlds").
There is a brush with the vampire ruling class - featuring cameo appearances from Dakota Fanning, as a malevolent, blank-faced vampire girl, and Michael Sheen (recently seen as Tony Blair in The Queen ) as a suave vampire authority figure.
Not until Michael Sheen, of "Frost/Nixon" and "The Queen," makes an appearance as the vampire pope - a cross between Count Dooku and Voldemort, with Dakota Fanning in a small role as his sidekick - does the gloomy and lethargic film show any bite.
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Hence, the film begins in 1961 as Armstrong and his wife Janet (Claire Foy of Netflix’s The Queen) cope with the loss of their toddler daughter to cancer.
Lockstep with her own reserve is The Queen Emmy winner Claire Foy as Janet Armstrong.
Factor in the Consolata Boyle’s (The Queen) elaborate costumes and Michael Carlin’s (Colette) transporting production design and Enola Holmes becomes a visual treat.
Roger Allam (2006's " The Queen ") is slimily good as the villainous Royalton, reminding of Tim Curry in full-snivel mode.
The shrewd script by Peter Morgan (“Frost/Nixon,” “The Last King of Scotland,” “The Queen”) stresses the parallels in the men’s lives.
To clear that up, screenwriter Peter Morgan (“The Queen”) adds a somewhat awkward coda: The movie announces, a little too straightforwardly, that what it has really been about is . . .
But director Ron Howard, who mostly makes stinkers these days, and writer Peter Morgan (“The Queen,” “Hereafter”) stage this dual need for speed, between someone who liked being liked and someone who preferred being feared, as a collection of strategic choices that has the emotional impact of shopping for tires.
The screenplay by Peter Morgan, who specializes in scripts based on recent history (The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, The Damned United) and collaborated previously with Howard on Frost/Nixon (2008), gives us the background of each character in broad strokes that unfortunately rely on rather self-conscious and out-of-place voice-over narration before focusing the film’s narrative energy on the 1975–76 racing season, when Hunt and Lauda were at their competitive high points.
Working from an atypically cornball script from top shelf screenwriter Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), the pair offers up a slick but rote sports drama that rarely rises to the fiery level of the real-life personalities it portrays.
Screenwriter Peter Morgan definitely has a type: though he’s flexible, he favors dramas, based on recent history, that depict a war of wills between two strong and preferably famous individuals: Frost/Nixon, The Queen, The Special Relationship.
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The Omega would be commonly known in these types of movies as “The Queen.”
If you buy the script by Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan (“The Queen”), the singer didn’t really know he was gay until the group’s American tour, even though his wife did.
Working from a story he conceived with Peter Morgan ( The Queen , Frost/Nixon ), Anthony McCarten’s ( The Theory of Everything , Darkest Hour ) screenplay is an outright disaster.
Following the rise of one of the most popular bands in music, screenwriters Peter Morgan (“The Queen”) and Anthony McCarten (“The Theory of Everything”) serve up a script that hits the high points that defined rock.
Between the two of them, they’ve got some impressive credentials in the field of biopics (McCarten, The Theory of Everything and Darkest Hour ; Morgan, The Queen and Frost/Nixon ).
The script — by Anthony McCarten (who also penned the recent biopics “Darkest Hour” and “The Theory of Everything”), who shares story credit with Peter Morgan (“The Queen,” “Frost/Nixon”) — sets up other Queen hits with similar head-smacking inevitability.