Great to look at but lacking any kind of plot

Rating: 6/10 (26 October 2007)

I saw this on 25th October in Norwich, complete with Q&A session with Geoffrey Rush and Shekhar Kapur. Overall, an impressive piece of film-making but with some major minuses. Given that the director has taken a liberal view of history, there is no need to pull him on up on several areas of blatant historical and Geographical inaccuracies, such as Elizabeth's speech at Tilbury, Mary Stuart's accent and Northamptonshire suddenly sprouting mountains. This is a reasonable adaptation strategy - take the main dramatic points of the film and fill in the rest with the spirit of the story you want to tell, even if it is inaccurate.
PLUSSES- The cinematography is excellent. The costumes are also amazing (even if not historically accurate as blue wasn't a colour known to Elizabethan England, but tish and pish).
Cate Blanchett is superb, again. Sam Morton is very touching as Mary Stuart and Geoffrey Rush is what he always is - excellent.
MINUSES- Clive Owen - Oh Dear!!! Granted, he looks the part but the boy reads his lines like it's read through and not a terribly important one either. He CANNOT ACT!!! What accent was he supposed to have?
Geoffrey Rush is criminally underused. His character, Walsingham, was a mainstay of the first film and yet is so peripheral in this, even when he is the supporting actor.
The plot. Very loose. The plot is simply how the Queen learns to cope with becoming divine rather than human, and how Spain plots to invade England. The first half an hour is very flabby and the dialogue a touch *too* over-dramatic in places.
Some people have accused it of being anti-catholic. Bullsh*t! It is about Catholicism versus Protestantism; that's what the history is about. That is why Spain wanted to invade. But it is also about tolerance over dogmatism. Elizabeth rejects punishing the Catholics in her land when she has the chance to do so. This is a parable of the dangers of religious extremism and is not picking on Catholics unfairly. Put it into today's context and it makes an important point.
Anyway, overall, an enjoyable film but Owen's performance is so bad as to detract from the good things in it. Beautiful to look at but a bit of a missed opportunity.
Kapur said he would like to make a film about Elizabeth's last few days on earth, so watch this space.