Charles II: The Power & the Passion

"The Last King" is a 3 hour, two part miniseries from the BBC which traces the life of King Charles II who ruled from 1649 until his death in 1685. The upside of this film includes its sumptuous appointments and excellent cast. Well directed and crafted, the film is engaging, passionate, and delivers a strong sense of Charles II, his Monarchy, and the period. On the downside, however, the film is very difficult to follow given the absence of any prologue or didactics, the mixing of sir names and titles, and the presumption of some knowledge of the history of the time. The film squanders time on the sexual intrigues and personal relationships of the womanizing King while largely ignoring the more historical and profound matters of state. The Dutch Wars, for example, are barley mentioned while much time is spent on the machinations of one of his mistresses, Barbara Villiers making the film a bit more of a soap opera than a historical chronicle. Nonetheless, this elegant film is a must see for anyone interested in King Charles II and a should see for those into stories of the history of England's monarchy. No one does English period films better than the Brits and this one has production value equal to any similar films from Hollywood. (Note - the DVD I watched has no CC's or Subtitles with much dialogue spoken in whispers or thick English, French, of Portuguese accents). B

You cannot help but be impressed by the production values of this potentially great BBC series. However, the scenes jump quickly, characters come and go quickly and overall the story is hard to follow unless you read up on the history of the reign of Charles II. Either the editing has been so severe that the continuity has been damaged or the producers have assumed that viewers are fully aware of the history. Either way, a narrative would have helped to fill in the considerable gaps.

That said, the sets are impressive and the acting is first-class. With better continuity, this could have been an impressive tele-movie. In the form that it was presented on TV, it just misses the mark unless you already know your history.

Wow mark you could at least have come up with your own comment instead of ripping off comments from the newsnight discussion on the BBC web site. Did you watch it yourself or did you have someone do that for you as well? For myself I thought this was superb; well acted and scripted if a little prone to use audience capturing doses of sex (almost certainly included to justify it's Saturday night television slot rather than as any particular desire of the director).

The tracking shot at the end as they walk around the lake was especially well crafted and was for me the perfect way of ending the story as they chose to tell it.

It's a great movie, even for a person who's not much into the history. Makes one think about political and social processes that one witnesses today, and reasons behind global decisions that are often hidden.

Rufus Sewell is excellent as Charles, royal but still very human, which just makes you feel an affection for the person he portrays. Rupert Graves is extremely convincing as Buckingham. The movie has an excellent pace, a very appropriate one for a historical drama, and never boring, which is (honestly) a rare thing to find in the genre. Also, makes you want to dig into the history of the period, which I did.

Overall, very much worth seeing.

I've watched this twice now, since A&E has been broadcasting the show this weekend under the title "The Last King" -- presumably because American audiences can't be expected to know or care who Charles II is.

Anyway, I don't understand the earler negative review at all. Hard to believe we watched the same show. The one I watched is a fantastic, very human, extraordinarily well-acted, and surprisingly faithful period piece.

While the acting in general is at a very high level (special props to the actress who played Lady Castlemaine), Rufus Sewell is simply remarkable. He communicates intelligence, self-indulgence, simple human decency and moments of power and passion wonderfully well. A terrific performance. I suppose because of his dark, somewhat moody good looks he only gets cast as bad guys by Hollywood (Helen of Troy, A Knight's Tale), but he deserves better.

Two thumbs up!