Fluff and gush

Rating: 1/10 (17 February 2008)

"Elizabeth, The Golden Age" is an unbelievable disappointment. If you know anything about what actually happened you'd wonder what you were watching. If you have ever been to Fotheringhay, for example, you would know it is not by a lake in a setting that looks like Scotland.
Also Elizabeth's famous speech at Tilbury to her troops leaves out the best part, "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain...." Why? The Armada battle is all-wrong with even the guns looking like they were from the Napoleonic Period.
Also Mary Queen of Scots probably had a French accent, as in the Helen Mirren version, as Mary was raised in France.
If you want a great scripted film just watch "The Lion in Winter." It always astounds me why filmmakers go to such effort with production values but can't get the nuts and bolts right.