A tale of obsession and infatuation - and that's just the director...

Rating: 6/10 (4 November 2007)

I am somewhat baffled by this movie.
On the face of it, this is an immensely powerful, beautifully shot and splendidly acted follow-up to the excellent 'Elizabeth', featuring a cast to die for, a top-notch script and a wardrobe of enormous expense.
Never mind that it 'plays fast and loose with history', or that it feels like a Tudor Braveheart - I can put up with such minor irritants for the sake of a good yarn.
Yet somewhere along the line, this movie becomes deeply unsatisfying. Perhaps even unsettling. If I had to put my finger on it, I'd say that the director has simply gotten carried away - he has immersed himself so much in the subject that the result is a work of obsession - and that always sits uncomfortably.
We are, therefore, treated to a movie that (hopefully) inadvertently proclaims that Protestants are good and god-favoured, whereas Catholics are a bad lot generally. That the English are a grand bunch of people, while the Spanish are vile and evil. That absolute monarchy and divine right are the only way to really run the town, so long as the monarch in question is virtuous, English and Protestant.
Of course, all of these things are fine and well for the story itself; the misfortune is that Kapur broadcasts these ideas through the film as his message to the audience.
It perhaps doesn't help that Philip of Spain is portrayed as a demented dancing dwarf with Tourette's Syndrome.
I'm going to watch this movie again at some point, but I have to say that it is, I think, a glorious Ozymandine failure.