Endlessly pretentious, dull, dull, dull

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 1999)

I can only think that Ben Walsh saw a different film to the one I endured last night. Certainly the costumes were magnificent but the script labored on and on without giving us details essential to understand what it was all about, and the direction was pretentiously self-conscious. I recall a film when I was a teenager - ELIZABETH AND ESSEX - with Bette Davis playing the Virgin Queen which was light years ahead of this attempt, and that was made fifty years ago. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that contemporary film making sucks, and ELIZABETH in particular is an exercise in tedium. Skip this one.