Inaccurate, uninteresting and terribly acted.

Rating: 4/10 (15 June 2008)

The historical inaccuracies are mind-boggling. It feels like they sat down said 'Alright, we know that Henry will bang both of them and that Anne will have Elizabeth. That's all we need. Let's make the rest of it as sexy as possible.' The ironic thing being that with a PG-13 rating, you can't really be sexy. Especially not when you make Scarlett Johansson incredibly unattractive and knock down Portman's looks a few knots as well. They advertised it as this massively erotic soap opera and it was just a melodramatic, unappealing mess that couldn't have been further from sensual. The technical achievements are pretty solid; the cinematography, costume design and score are certainly among the best of the year so far but none of that makes the film worth watching. I would say that Natalie Portman's good performance makes the film slightly worth sitting through, but the positive aspect in that is completely cancelled out by the atrocity that is whatever Scarlett Johansson did. Calling that a performance would be an insult to performers. It was terrible.