The most fascinating failure of all time!

Rating: 5/10 (3 November 2007)

Seriously, I don't know where to begin on this film which I went to with my grandmother and a sibling.
The film has so many pros, but in the end is down-weighed by cons. It's probably worth seeing at least once, but It's not necessarily going to be on your DVD shelf when it's available and that's okay.
The Pros: The acting is well delivered from everyone including Cate Blanchett and Clive Owen who are always perfect; the cinematography is gorgeous; the music is very stunning; and that ends up getting "chewed" down by the Cons: Extremely slow murders; illicit affairs that seem to drag; a not boring, but still long two-and-a-half hours; brief gratuitous nudity; unexciting war battle sequences; a literally non-existent script that seems to be trying to be telling the viewer a message that isn't expressed; all meaningful moments where someone is expressing something has "next-to-none" meaning; and the excellent music tends to play at inappropriate times like when the characters are saying something vital to the "nonexistant" plot.
And, plus, we viewers have already seen something like this before with the countless Adventure/History/War films out there. But while this film is "so-so," it would have had a better place as an above-average T.V. drama, but then again HBO and the BBC have already re-enacted this story countless times so it probably wouldn't have been welcome there either. It's at least better then the 2004 take on "The Alamo," but that's not saying very much.
So all in all, an extremely visual film with literally no substance. This will most likely only get an Oscar nominee for costume/wardrobe design and that's about it. I doubt it will find a place on cable either ( with the exception of Hallmark ) because it's nothing compared to any other historical drama/mini-series.
So see it if you've got time to kill.
P.S.: I seriously tried to look for any visual meaning and all I got was when, in one critical scene, Elizabeth is nearly assassinated by a traitor and doesn't die; she then seems to glow for a minute in the bright light as if the director was trying to signify that she is a strong women, but it wasn't elaborated on at all after all so then once again a vaguely-transferred message.