Sad Rip-off of a Truly great film

Rating: Null/10 (31 October 2008)

What a huge disappointment ... The historical tale of Henry the 8th's passion for Anne Boleyn, which resulted in the creation of Protestantism and the downfall of absolute Papal secular authority, is one of the great tales of Western culture,one of truly Shakespearean proportions, the consequences of which have reverberated for the last 400 years.
This movie, which seems at times like a simple shameless ripoff of the great film "Anne of the Thousand Days", and at other times, seeks to dumb this story down to a bland soap opera, with the elements of bodice-ripper dimestore romance novels, completely ignores the virtually earth-shaking political and religious dimensions of the actual events, and speeds up events in a "Reader's Digest Condensed Books" fashion, so that they become devoid of all meaning, while piling on absurd historical inaccuracies, is evidence of the extent to which popular culture has Dumbed down over the last 4 decades. Most of the acting is wooden and unconvincing, especially in the case of Eric Bana, who is only slightly less believable than he was in the first "Hulk" flick, although the two lead actresses, in particular Ms. Johanssen, do make a heroic effort to rescue some feeling from the otherwise banal and pedestrian dialogue. Anyone who is not particularly familiar with the historical events, or has not seen the superb film of this story done by Hal Wallis, starring Richard Burton and Genevieve Bujold, can be forgiven for considering this a passably interesting entertainment, but, to realize how fully awful this movie really is, one needs to watch "Anne of the Thousand Days". You will NOT be disappointed !!