What's all the fuss?

Rating: Null/10 (1 March 1999)

The enormous support for this film in the press, Academy and other Awards is a further indication of how starved contemporary movie going audiences are.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the film well enough, but was extremely disappointed nonetheless.
There is little reading anymore and the quality of education is diminishing. It is my expectation that visual media like film and TV should take on substantial roles in providing historical information to those who might otherwise be ignorant.
I knew little of Queen Elizabeth prior to my viewing this film, and knew only minimally more after I had finished. The production design and costuming, while interesting and possibly accurate (who really knows) left me not knowing who was whom and where was where. It is the responsibility of the filmmakers to keep us IN the story, they failed miserably here. Had I an advanced degree in European history perhaps my reaction would be rabid, instead of tepid.
A few directions, some simple titles, narration, or background exposition, would have helped immensely. Somehow I feel the filmmakers believed themselves to be above all that drivel, proud to let us stumble along, continually uncertain as to who was whom, and which side was which. It's the arrogance of Kenneth Branagh-style filmmaking.
Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth is good in the same way John Hurt was a good Elephant Man, again, who really knows?
We certainly don't need another Kenneth Branagh, a man who pompously makes costume dramas without regard to any sort of audience involvement, preferring to throw his ideas and images at them, catch if catch can, like a rich man throws pennies to a beggar. Should the success of Elizabeth spurn growth of that type of filmmaking., then I am saddened even more.