Elizabeth the Great -- pity about the story

Rating: 7/10 (31 October 2005)

Contains minor spoiler(s) Cate Blanchett is wonderful in this film. The title is simply Elizabeth, she IS Elizabeth and she carries the whole thing with great assurance and skill. It is very believable that Elizabeth was like this.
The Elizabethan era is a fascinating one, with wonderful stories and also great visual appeal. What I can't understand is why the film makers cast all that aside -- seemingly in the belief that they could do better.
Visually, the film seems to be set in the deepest Middle Ages and not in Tudor Times. Tudor aristocrats did not live among bare stone walls, or in Queen Mary's case, what looks rather like the Batcave. I suppose Tudor colourfulness had been 'done' too often before, and the urge to be original and different took over.
It's a shame that the story is mainly nonsense and events and personalities from Elizabeth's long reign are just jumbled together and scandalously travestied in some cases. There would be plenty to go on in the real events, e.g. the mysterious death of Dudley's wife (whom Elizabeth knew about all along, having been a guest at the wedding).
It's true there was plenty of fornication in Tudor times, but this particular fornication is more than doubtful. It seems quite likely that Elizabeth really was the Virgin Queen. However, this would never do for a modern version, where sex scenes are a must. The Zeitgeist of the 1990s was clearly far more powerful in the film makers' imaginations than the 16th century. Pity.