Not as Good as the First "Elizabeth"

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2011)

"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" picks up pretty much where 1998's "Elizabeth" left off. The time is 1588, a full thirty years into Elizabeth I's phenomenal reign as Queen of England. On the continent, Europe is caught in the grip of a papal-decreed Holy War, while, in Britain, the Virgin Queen faces numerous threats to her throne and person from enemies both within her realm and without. The latter include King Phillip of Spain, who views the Protestant Elizabeth as nothing less than the devil himself come in female guise to tear down the one true apostolic faith, while the former consist mainly of her own disgruntled citizens, loyal to the Catholic Scottish queen (and Elizabeth's own cousin), Mary Stuart, currently being held prisoner for suspected acts of sedition against the Crown.
Whereas the first "Elizabeth" was a remarkably dark and brooding study of the times in which it was set, this follow-up takes a much more feel-good approach to the era (despite the occasional torture sequence or the random tongue-removal or beheading). Returning as director, Shekhar Kapur has mounted this film with an eye toward mass audience consumption, focusing far more on the rather jejune - and largely fictionalized - romantic escapades of the Queen and Sir Walter Raleigh, than on the far more intriguing sociopolitical issues of the time. The scenes depicting this more or less "platonic" love affair are the most poorly written in the film, utilizing dialogue that ranges from the pedestrian and the pretentious to the downright laughable and silly. Clive Owen certainly looks dashing enough as the legendary, cloak-dropping "pirate," Sir Walter, but he plays him with such an Errol Flynn air and demeanor that he quickly reduces the character to a movie-swashbuckler anachronism.
Cate Blanchett, who turned herself into a virtual household name with her star-turn in the earlier film, scores a similar triumph in "The Golden Age." She helps to humanize a figure who has all too often been encased in wax when presented on screen. In an obvious effort to make her more "identifiable" to modern audiences, the writers, William Nicholson and Michael Hirst, may have erred in making her just a mite too petulant and petty at times, but Blanchet is scrupulously careful to avoid crossing the line into buffoonery at any point in the film. This Elizabeth is definitely feeling the burdens of her position and she often finds herself caught between reveling in her position of authority and privilege and secretly desiring the unscrutinized life of the anonymous, "regular" commoner. The always reliable Geoffrey Rush also returns as her now-aging adviser, Sir Francis Walsingham.
Yet, for all its flaws, and despite its tendency to wander off into the realm of soap opera and melodrama a bit too often, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" is still a fairly engrossing and entertaining piece of historical drama, and certainly nowhere near the unmitigated disaster many critics have accused it of being. For despite the extreme elaborateness of its clothing and sets, the film never really devolves into a stagnant or stale costume drama, thanks, in large part, to the richness of Blanchett's performance and to the reasonably fast-paced nature of the narrative. Lucky for the audience, Kapur keeps the movie going by never dwelling too long on any given scene (although I do wish that he had toned down the music a scosh).
The first "Elizabeth" was a genuinely great film; yet, while this second installment may not be quite as "golden" as either its title or its pedigree might suggest, it's still hard to resist the lure of that Elizabethan magic.