Avoid at all costs

Rating: 1/10 (2 March 2008)

After watching the movie, I had to look up the Boleyn family on wikipedia as well as Phillipa Gregory's book on Amazon to get any semblance of historical truth on what actually happened during Ann Boleyn's life.
While movies definitely should not be viewed as telling history, this movie bears so little resemblance to historical truth that all the characters should be renamed so that no one would mistake the movie as having any correlation to Ann Boleyn and her sister. If you would like to know the truth about her and her sister, I recommend you look up Ann Boleyn and then Mary Boleyn on wikipedia at the very least.
Historical facts aside, I found the camera-work oppressively pretentious with too many dark forebodings of the ending. I am sure that even England gets some share of temperate weather...but in the movie you'd think that pre-Renaissance England was marked with years on end of dark and gloomy days to punish all the English for Henry's treatment of his wives.
Natalie Portman is wasted on a one-sided character. It's good to see Kristin Scott Thomas as Lady Boleyn and she, along with Katherine of Aragon, are the only characters of intelligence. Eric Bana has little to do but glare (it's a little like him replaying his Hulk role but in historical costumes). And Scarlett Johannson makes good seem insipid.
It was a waste of money to make this movie, so don't waste your own money by paying to see it in a theater. I would go so far as to say don't even waste your time watching this movie...unless you are a costume designer. The historical costumes are actually quite fabulous.