Elizabeth - The Golden Age (DVD)

Elizabeth has been on the throne of England for some years but her rule is threatened by Philip, King of Spain. He is determined to return the country to Catholicism and is preparing a fleet of ships to invade. As she prepares for war, she also struggles with her own feelings. She is attracted to handsome adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh and encourages a friendship between him and her lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton then has to endure the pain of ...
...historical events it feels like Elizabeth I's greatest hits, with the introduction of the potato, the execution of Mary Stuart, Sir Walter Raleigh throwing his cloak over a puddle so she doesn't get her feet muddy and the Spanish Armada all cropping up. The writing is plagued by emotional sterility because of the soapy exposition. So we feel nothing when Elizabeth's trusted advisor Walsingham dies or when Bess and Raleigh get together.

more

Elizabeth has been on the throne of England for some years but her rule is threatened by Philip, King of Spain. He is determined to return the country to Catholicism and is preparing a fleet of ships to invade. As she prepares for war, she also struggles with her own feelings. She is attracted to handsome adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh and encourages a friendship between him and her lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton then has to endure the pain of their growing intimacy. Meanwhile her advisor and spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham uncovers an assassination plot. Those implicated include her own cousin Mary Stuart and with the possible traitors unmasked, England stands on the brink of destruction.

Shekhar Kapur first made his mark with "Elizabeth" and in the process made a star of leading lady Cate Blanchett. So I suppose it's no real surprise that he thought to make a sequel detailing better known aspects of the titular queen's reign. Sadly this is a far less accomplished film that comes across as a Tudor soap opera rather than a perceptive historical drama.

It still looks the business - beautifully recreated dresses made of bolts and bolts of sumptuous fabrics with exquisite embroidery, beadwork and starched ruffs, fabulous jewellery and intricate wigs abound. The locations are imposing; palaces and castles and a seemingly endless parade of vaulted and panelled rooms. Some shots are populated by dozens of extras in historically accurate costumes. But there's nothing beneath the gloss; Kapur doesn't invest emotionally in his characters or guide his actors. So you don't care about any of the players and the performances tend towards the melodramatic. This gives the whole production a stilted quality that is difficult to watch and even harder to care about. It drains all the tension from the story and shows up the lack of substance in the narrative. It doesn't help that the key sequences are so badly botched. The sea battle between the English and Spanish navies is unbearably stagy, seemingly made up of stock footage of stormy seas and off-cuts from "Pirates of the Caribbean". The sight of Clive Owen at the prow of a ship as the wind and spray buffets him made me want to slap my forehead at the sheer cringe-worthiness of it all (never mind the fact that the real Sir Walter Raleigh wasn't even at sea during the climactic battle). There are a few moments of intentional comedy (such as Walsingham eating a potato as if it was an apple), but they feel out of place. And occasional bouts of shaky camerawork are unforgivable considering the budget of the movie. The pacing stutters as Kapur bounces from big historical events to Elizabeth's personal trials and tribulations. So the film feels long at a-hundred-and-fourteen minutes.

The screenplay by William Nicholson and Michael Hirst plays fast and loose with history and passes off historical footnotes as major plot points. And therein lies the problem - the original movie dealt with a period in the monarch's life that most people had little or no foreknowledge of, so inaccuracies were harder to spot. It also wasn't afraid of being dark or showing the brutality that resulted from Elizabeth's politicking or her advisors. But this one is handled more like a contrived soap where the queen is the victim and all the other nasty people are picking on her, regardless of whether they are breaking her heart, plotting to kill her or trying to take her country, they are all tarred with the same brush. In terms of historical events it feels like Elizabeth I's greatest hits, with the introduction of the potato, the execution of Mary Stuart, Sir Walter Raleigh throwing his cloak over a puddle so she doesn't get her feet muddy and the Spanish Armada all cropping up. The writing is plagued by emotional sterility because of the soapy exposition. So we feel nothing when Elizabeth's trusted advisor Walsingham dies or when Bess and Raleigh get together.

The characterisation is coarse. This is especially true of the peripheral characters. All foreigners are either buffoons or bullies, Mary Stuart is a two-dimensional villain, her co-conspirators are inept religious zealots and even Walsingham has been defanged, making him more a figure of fun than a potentially dangerous obsessive. It's hard to reconcile the two sides of Elizabeth; the privately vulnerable woman and the publicly commanding figure. There's no finesse between the transitions making the shifts feel clunky. Sir Walter Raleigh is presented as a stock swashbuckling hero and Bess is an under-developed best friend archetype. So there is little mileage in their relationship. Walsingham is a man past his prime and unwilling or unable to control the country with an iron fist. The intrigue could have been increased a hundred-fold if there was more to the characterisation, allowing us greater insight into the conspirators' motivations and Bess and Raleigh's romance. The dialogue throughout is stilted and feels like an attempt to create quotable Elizabethan sound-bites.

Cate Blanchett is better than the film deserves as the titular monarch. She isn't old enough to play the queen at this period of her reign, but otherwise her performance is nuanced and generally convincing. She embodies the mercurial nature of Elizabeth I while retaining her humanity. She is by turns playful, glacial, intelligent, fragile, jealous and commanding. It's a shame she doesn't have enough chemistry with Clive Owen to sell their potential relationship and her affection for Bess is hampered by poor writing.

Abbie Cornish struggles with the English accent as Bess Throckmorton and fails to flesh out the character sufficiently to make her feel like more than a plot device. But she is also impeded by a lack of screen-time. Clive Owen approaches the part of Sir Walter Raleigh as if he were a swashbuckling hero in the mould of Errol Flynn. He is a charming, mischievous lady-killer, which brings some much-needed light relief to the film, but seems inconsistent with the overall style. Geoffrey Rush has inexplicably gone back to his roots as Walsingham by ditching any pretence at a British Accent and going Aussie. He plays the character as if he's been mellowed by time and is fully aware that he is no longer indispensable. This makes both the role and the performance underwhelming after his powerhouse turn in "Elizabeth". Samantha Morton also suffers from confused accent syndrome as Mary Stuart. She's starchy, stiff, cold and supercilious, which all contrives to make her so unlikeable it's impossible to understand why so many rally to her cause. Meanwhile Jordi Molla plays the barmy card as the unhinged Philip of Spain, ripping away all pretence of subtlety.

The original music by Craig Armstrong and A R Rahman relies on big, brassy arrangements that are supposed to convey majestic pomp, but loses its efficacy through overuse. It is a score that takes itself too seriously, as best evidenced in the self-important warm brass and tense string orchestrations during the sea battle. Anything vaguely religious is accompanied by big choral arrangements and the plot against Elizabeth by dark strings or percussion. There isn't enough variety in the music and it feels overpowering compared to the insubstantial contents of the rest of the movie.

"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" may be a tent-pole heritage picture in ambition but fails through a combination of lackadaisical directions, sloppy writing and unfocussed performances. There isn't enough to the production to back up the laudable costume design, making it nothing more than a parade of beautiful frocks and big names. It was a sequel we didn't need that feels like all involved were just in it for the money. It may be worth a punt when it's on television just for the spectacle, but if you watch it with the sound turned off, you'll probably enjoy it more. 

...less