Cate Blanchett reprises her breakthrough role as the virgin queen with somewhat less success.

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2007)

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a victim of its own epic reach. It reaches for poignant greatness but achieves only stilted hyperbole. Whereas with the first film, Shekhar Kapur created an intimate-feeling, small spectacle (if such a paradox can exist), this second outing for the virgin queen feels much bigger and brasher.
The film takes place as England, with an empty treasury, must defend its borders from Phillip II (Jordi Molla), King of Spain, and his Armada. As well as this threat, Elizabeth must also contend with various threats to her life, not least of which from her incarcerated cousin, Mary Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) and deal with her attraction towards Walter Raleigh, played by Clive Owen with a rather unenthused Devonshire accent.
What Kapur did so well with the first film, and what he does here also to some extent, is to create splendour. The sumptuousness of Elizabeth's various garments almost detracts from anything anyone is saying on screen. Whereas in the first film this was consistent throughout the film, here there are only set pieces of vividity and poignancy. There is a wonderful moment when the Queen has gone to morning prayers and her life is put in danger by a concealed assassin. As he shouts, she turns slowly, nervously, bathed in an almost heavenly light. But these moments are not enough to serve the film in its entirety.
After building up the story through moments similar to the above, it seems Kapur realises he has spent nearly all the film dwelling on the relationship between Elizabeth and Raleigh and hurriedly chucks the kitchen sink in for the film's climax. Elizabeth riding on a white horse on the coast, the sun glinting off her superbly polished silver armour as the ominous armada approach in the background. Walter Raleigh swinging from galleon to galleon in the sea battle, diving underwater as his ship, aflame, crashes into a Spanish vessel. Kapur appears to have abandoned history for the sensational. Although ridiculous, the sheer vision and spectacle of the climax forces you to appreciate it.
There is no doubt Blanchett carries the film, her intensity and sincerity as the Queen is worthy of Oscar recognition come next year. The rest of the performances are passable. Geoffrey Rush returns as Walsingham, now a decaying relic compared to the first film. Samantha Morton is severely underused as Mary Stuart, forgiving her Scottish accent (Mary was known to have lived most of her life in northern France) she conveys her as tormented, and sufficiently eccentric. In fact her beheading is one of the best moments in the film.
Verdict: What is more a series of set pieces and showy cinematography, never really amounts to a whole, but should be commended for its historically inaccurate, wacky climax- who needs a history lesson when they go to the cinema anyway? *** out of *****