Painfully long & slow

Rating: 2/10 (4 November 2007)

What can I say, the 1st Elizabeth was simply great, the kind of movie leaving you riveted to the edge of your seat! Unfortunately this one is very much the complete opposite. So yes the costumes are great and the few CGI special effects (basically the couple of minutes of action featuring the ships of the Spanish Great Armada) are well made.
But apart from that it's a 2 hours torture that could have easily been reduced to a half-hour. There's no rhythm, it's very very slow, with many supposedly "key" scenes just dragging on & on & on (e.g. the execution, the baby, the kiss, etc etc...). The trailer pretty much shows what's worth watching out of the 2 hours movie, how sad is that? Kate Blanchett's acting is possibly the only positive note overall & Clive Owen is pathetic as usual (though his worst performance is still Children of Men). As for Geoffrey Rush I really like him but he doesn't have much to do in this movie.
In the end, you feel the director made an attempt to picture some kind of intimate portrayal of Elizabeth: her fears, her doubts, her loneliness... Fine, but then stick to making some BBC TV documentary. Because for a full-length cinema feature it's definitely not good enough! Kapur should have stuck to the winning formula that worked so well for the 1st movie: the intrigues, the twisted plots, the action...
Sorry, just didn't do it for me.