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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Alas...this is a shorter version!!
I was fortunate to be able to watch the original four hour version. I would give five starts to the original but four to the shortened version as I don't think anything should be cut from the coherent story.
The only reservation I have is over casting. I always imagined Lady Castlemaine (Charles' longtime lover) to be a sensuous, beautiful, radiant, yet shrewed (like businessman)court lady. But the actress who played her didn't fit the description. She looked like (from the beginning)one tired old lady without any charm and made me wonder why a woman like that was able to keep his affection for such a long time. Catharine the Queen had a weired accent...which was not how Portuguese speak English....
Louise the French mistress was marvelously cast. So was Nell, another mistress of the king's. My favorite scene was when Nell got out from her carriage and charmed the hostile people on the street. They thought it was Louise's carriage and were shouting to "the French/Catholic" whore to get out. Nell got out and said "No, you are mistaken. I am his (King's) Protestant whore." It was funny.
Other than some questionable casting, this drama was well-produced. You would love it.
Rating: -
The Last KIng enjoyed
I liked this movie very much, partly because I am a fan of Charkes the II partly because there was excellent acting and the movie was well executed. What turned me off was the lack of subtitles. I am an old man suffering from a hearing loss and while I could hear Rufus Sewell well enough I found his wife inpossible to understand and some of the other characters were marginal. If lack of hearing is not a problem one well might enjoy it. This movie is not for everybody. Yet how many movies are? BB
Rating: -
Three hours is enough
I found myself finding the movie Restoration filling in holes of the story when the great fire and the Plague were shown. There was not enough emphasis given to the great love he had for the Arts. Most of the pieces did connect but as a former review commented, there is something missing not much though. Three hours is quite long enough to get the gist of the main points. I got a real sense of the political pressure from Catholic France, from Parliament to keep a power hungry king at bay with financial ruin, and a moral mob to curb his immoral behavior which had little effect. You can see the relationship and the severe trauma working in him as he recalls his fathers death. He believed that aristocracy was more important than democracy and held firm in that belief until the end. The one scene that keeps itself burned into my memory is Charles handing coins to a panicked and devastated population as the fire rages. He looks up and sees a man in the tower pronouncing judgement of ruin on the king as the fire envelopes him. A deep sense of what the aristocracy is came to mind. Armed with only coin and pomp, he was ignorant and helpless to actually do anything to comfort his people because he was too far removed from them given his lofty station in life. In that regard, I found it a very likable albeit long movie.
Rating: -
Why is it titled "The Last King"?
If you're interested in learning more about Charles II of England then get this DVD and then read "Forever Amber". The costuming and detail is wonderful and Love-to-Hate-Her Barbara Palmer is marvelously scheming and evil. You'll recognize--at least by her distinctive voice--Moaning Myrtle as the King Charles Portugese Queen. It seems just a bit sterile though because most of the scenes are shot indoors. I think I'm missing the scenery of Merry Old Restoration England. Rufus Sewell is a hunk and plays Charles II the way I would imagine. Enjoy.
NOTE For Parents: At the beginning of the movie Charles II witnesses his father's beheading. He's directly under the scaffold and the head drops towards his upturned face and the blood splashes all over Charles' II face. Yuck.
Rating: -
One rare visual treat of late 17th century period drama
The Last King is not a regular period film where all can sit comfortably and watch from beginning to end without a pause. Stretching over three hours, it is too gorgeous a set to be compartmentalized into a mini-series; yet it is perhaps a little too long for a full-fledged film.
I watched the entire DVD in 3 to 4 sittings. The only flaw I could find after watching the entire production was with the beginning - I was quite uncomfortable with the jerky camera style and the biography took quite a while to gain momentum.
I thought the film started to gain momentum during the second half of Part 1, when there was a marked change in costumes of the English court, influenced by predominant fashion sensibility led by the French court of Louis XIV.
The costumes were first-rate, and they showed the replacement of long tresses with wigs in the European court, of which a variety of colours were in vogue.
The character of Charles II played by Rufus Sewell took time to find rapport with the audience but once it did, the effect was spell-binding, long-lasting and deep. Sewell's charismatic portrayal played an indubitable role in the success of the production.
The relationship with the Queen was an emphatic one, and Charles' lasciviousness and his weakness for women is always given a balanced portrayal against his deep respect for his legal wife, as reflected in history.
Barbara Palmer, Charles' long-time mistress was by far, the most obnoxious character I found - portrayed as an insatiable nymphomaniac that devoured men of all ages. Helen McCrory is hardly the ideal choice for her age and lack of facial resemblance - Palmer was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in court during her prime - her surviving portrait testifies to this. The incongruence in appearance and behaviour of Palmer as played by McCrory hardly endears one to her eventual plight when she was finally ousted from court by Charles, tired of her manipulations. But her performance was nothing short of marvellous and even though one soon tires of her duplicity and sexual appetite, one could not help but feel a tinge of empathy during the scene of her breakdown.
Emma Pierson as Nell Gwynn was a tad too modern and MTV-ish, but perhaps that was the intention of the producer - to make her a prototype feminist of sorts.
Louis XIV made a brief appearance and was portrayed as somewhat effeminate and over-powdered.
The title theme and the soundtrack is regal, binding and largely effective in augmenting the film's dramatic stature. I was particularly moved by the sublimity of the scene when Charles adamantly proclaimed his regal right, dissolved the parliament and walked out of the parliament, non-plussed.
The time-run of the production gives ample development for Charles' character and the viewer is pre-empted to discover the transformation and motivation behind Charles' final and secret conversion to Catholicism at his deathbed, through his disillusionment with the hypocrisy of Protestants in the parliament and the unwavering love of his Catholic wife.
The film gives a balanced account of both the politics and passion of Charles II, and should probably be one of the most comprehensive filmic productions on any monarch to have been made.
![: The Last King [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ns9CCHB9L._SL160_.jpg)
