Oh, this is too bad

Rating: 4/10 (11 February 2008)

If you want a taste of the true Elizabeth Tudor, then the BBC series with Glenda Jackson is probably your best bet. If you read anything about Elizabeth I, nothing in Cate Blanchett's performance will seem familiar. Her stately, calm, inexpressive swanlike queen is, in its way, impressive, but it is not Elizabeth. Elizabeth I was a firecracker, a phoenix, combustible and perfectly capable of scaring the ever-loving out of her courtiers and councilors.
This movie tries to make things interesting by imagining an ersatz "romance" between the queen and Sir Walter Raliegh, but it cannot take the place of the ongoing drama that was the real Elizabeth. It cannot make up for striping Elizabeth herself of everything that was intrinsically interesting about her.