Rating: 3 Pulses
Cate Blanchet, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen
Directed by Shekhar Kapur
Rated PG-13
Elizabeth: The Golden Age, is full of well-designed sets and remarkable costumes. However, no matter how flamboyant the costumes and opulent the sets, one cannot help thinking that the movie is missing something.
All those magnificent elements worked well in 1998’s Elizabeth by the same director, Shekhar Kapur, but in this movie the audience is overwhelmed by them and the attention slips from the characters.
Cate Blanchett portrays Elizabeth well, to the point one would think “Who else could play the role?” She is elegant, beautiful and, in my mind, represents an honest look at a 16th-century queen.
That being said, Michael Hirst and William Nicholson’s screenplay isn’t in anyway elegant. The first hour and a half of the movie is lost in the romantic dabbling of Elizabeth and her court. Then, for the last 30 minutes, the audience is treated to a an extremely short version of the 1588 Spanish Armada’s attempt to invade England, which ultimately ends on account of rain.
Sir Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth’s love as this film would have you believe, is played by Clive Owen. His performance was nothing short of a textbook Hollywood hero. He swings on a rope with sword in hand and plunges gallantly into the sea. For the most part, however, he hangs around in Elizabeth’s court and lays down lines not the product of good writing.
Raleigh falls in love with one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, who he impregnates. Elizabeth is angry, but seemingly recovers in the same scene. It’s this type of scenario which best describes the whole movie. Choppy and shoddily written.
If you are big fan of the role Blanchett played in Elizabeth, you will probably enjoy this film. She, perhaps better than the screenwriters themselves, knows how to portray Henry VIII’s daughter. But if you don’t love love stories stay away.
