King Charles III

As people mourn the death of the queen, Prince Charles prepares to become the king of the monarchy. All things good, we get the idea, but I feel like the movie emphasizes more the characters, than the action itself. Plus, it seems like the situation presented turns into a game with no end, but we already know how things may change. I mean, it's obvious that in a moment when things go wrong, the only solution for the man in power is to give up, right? I just think that the movie could have come up an impartial opinion on how things evolve after the tragic event and let the public decide what path, good or bad, the king may choose.

King Charles III is a fictional drama with cod Shakespearean type language as it is spoken in blank verse which sees Prince Charles finally becoming monarch after the death of the present queen.

Almost immediately the new king causes a constitutional crisis by falling out with the elected Prime Minister over the issues of giving assent to a new law regarding press privacy.

King Charles's action brings chaos to the country and causes division within his own family with a grasping Kate seeing this as an opportunity for her husband William to seize the crown.

This was one of Tim Pigott-Smith's last performance who reprises his stage role of King Charles III, a man who finally gets to play the role he was born to play but whose ambition exceeds his constitutional grasp.

This was a finely performed film, however I would have thought in this crisis the press would be overwhelmingly on the side of the new King as he defends the freedom of the press.

The big issue I had though that the plot was similar in many ways to the BBC series, To Play the King (the second part of the BBC's House of Cards trilogy) which also had a Princess Diana type character vying to wrest the crown from her then errant husband and pass it on to her son. Here we see the ghost of Diana and Kate taking on the substance of the character who is an opportunist.

Where did this fantasy "reality" drama come from? It takes real living people and turns them into farcical characters with evil or untoward motivations. Yet, like a train wreck, I couldn't look away. I guess it's interesting to watch but I'm not sure why. We all have our opinions on the royal family and what we think makes them tick. It just seems a bit irresponsible to commit those notions to film, which has the unfortunate effect of being interpreted as having a basis in fact.

A terribly flawed film. As a Shakespearean style tragedy, it's an interesting premise, but as "what if" history it surely falls flat. The writer (Mike Bartlett) needed to do his research (much better than he did). I can't believe this is what the BBC has become. I think they've lost their minds if they think they can keep distributing messes like this one.

A great idea and a great presentation. The use of "language style" to separate the classes was a wonderful choice. While the underlying reason for the drama is a bit thin (contrived?), the presentation is well worth it.