Elizabeth, but not as we know her

Rating: 5/10 (7 November 2007)

I usually make up my mind about whether I want to see a movie on the basis of the cast list. Cate Blanchett always gets my vote, as she has her own strength and aura, even when the material she is working with is a bit limp (e.g Charlotte Gray). And then Geoffrey Rush and Rhys Ifans: the clincher. I have to say, I was disappointed with this movie. The production is lush and the costumes are gorgeous, but the characterisation is paper-thin and the plotting lacks all tension. The only moment when I sat up in my seat was when Elizabeth, who has learned of the Mary Stuart plot against her, howls at the Spanish ambassador "I have in me such a hurricane as will strip Spain bare!". At other times I groaned out loud (the mad galloping on horseback through fields with sweet Sir Walter! What a cliché!). The white-clad, angelic Elizabeth who faces down her would-be assassin was a reprise of Galadriel, which I found unaccountable. The exhortation to her (rather thinly-populated) army, dressed in pristine armour à la Henry V, was lame. Geoffrey Rush as the ailing Walsingham wheezed his way through a part which conveyed nothing of his power as an actor. Not a waste of time, but rather like eating a whole plate of marshmallows at one sitting.