Gorgeous But Clumsy

Rating: 7/10 (21 January 2019)

29 October 2007. This rich, luxurious,and gorgeous epic level movie is burdened with a convoluted, clumsy script that seems as murky as the plots surrounding the Queen leaving the audience far much in the dark until the bright sun of clarity shines later in the movie. The characters, especially in the first half of the movie seems more caricatures and one-dimensional figures of good and evil that really do not do justice to this much more fully realized world of Elizabeth. Oddly enough it is the role of Mary Stuart played by Samantha Morton later in the movie that takes center stage in such a dignified manner that her performance almost outshines all others. Sir Walter Raleigh and Bess, Lady in Waiting relationship is an attempt at putting a human face on the Middle Ages, but still there is so much overlooked. Skimmed over is war scenes, the Queen's actual decision in the sentence of Mary Stuart. There are far too many plot points that seem to end up skipped, making the audience fill in the gaps, as if having to watch most of the movie, except there are gaps missing along with English dialogue that ironically enough might have been better handled with captions like the foreign languages used in the movie. Overall, Cate Blanchett's while not as stellar as Helen Mirren's performance in 2006 of another Queen, is competent and penetrated though perhaps too overwrought, to manipulative. The movie made strong points, ethical, moral, and otherwise, but it failed to seize the mighty throne of the genre. Seven out of Ten Stars.