Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Tags: intrigue

Plot synopsis:
In 1585, Catholic Spain ruled by King Philip II of Spain (Jordi Molla) is the most powerful country in the world. Seeing Protestant England as a threat, and in retaliation for English piracy of Spanish ships, Philip plots war. He plans to take over England and make his daughter, Isabella, the Queen of England in Elizabeth's place. Meanwhile, Elizabeth I of England (Cate Blanchett) is being pressured by her advisor, Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), to marry, for if she dies without an heir, the throne will pass to her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton), who is Catholic. Therefore, the Queen is presented with portraits of appropriate suitors, particularly the very youthful Charles II, Archduke of Austria (Christian Brassington), but she refuses to marry any of them.
English explorer Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) is presented at Elizabeth's court, having returned from the New World, and he offers her potatoes, tobacco, two Native Americans, and gold from a Spanish ship that he claims was "unable to continue its journey". Elizabeth is attracted to Raleigh, enthralled by his tales of exploration, and asks Bess Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish), her most favored lady-in-waiting, to observe him. Bess also finds Raleigh attractive and secretly begins an affair with him. With tensions strained between England and Spain, Elizabeth seeks guidance from her astrologer, Dr. John Dee (David Threlfall), who predicts that two empires will go to war. However, he cannot predict which will triumph over the other, leaving Elizabeth to ponder her and England's fate.
Jesuits in London conspire with Philip to assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, in what Philip calls "The English Enterprise", historically known as the Babington Plot. From her imprisonment, Mary sends secret correspondence to the Jesuits, who recruit Anthony Babington (Eddie Redmayne) to assassinate Elizabeth. Walsingham continues to warn Elizabeth of Spain's rising power and of the Catholics' plots against her. However she, unlike her predecessor and half-sister Mary I of England, refuses to force her people to share her religious beliefs. Even so, those conspiring against Elizabeth are being hunted and murdered, including Bess's cousin, Sir Francis Throckmorton and his father, whom Bess had failed to protect.
Walsingham's brother, a Papist, who knows of the plot against Elizabeth is jailed and Walsingham reveals Spain's plot to Elizabeth, who angrily confronts the Spanish diplomats. The Spanish ambassador feigns ignorance, accuses Elizabeth of receiving Spanish gold from pirates, and insinuates that she has a sexual relationship with Raleigh. Enraged, Elizabeth throws the Spaniards out of court. Meanwhile, Philip is cutting down the forests of Spain to build the Spanish Armada, to invade England. Mary writes letters condoning the plot.
Babington storms into a cathedral where Elizabeth is praying and fires a pistol at her, though Elizabeth is unharmed as it is revealed that there was no bullet in the gun. The conspirators of The English Enterprise are imprisoned and interrogated by Walsingham but do not answer why the pistol was unloaded. As Elizabeth learns of Mary's involvement in the plot, Walsingham insists Mary be executed to quell any possible revolt. Elizabeth is reluctant, but nevertheless agrees. Mary is tried for high treason and is beheaded, after ascending the block in a blood-red dress (red being the Catholic liturgical color for martyrs). Walsingham sees that this was part of the Jesuits' plan all along. Philip had never intended Mary to become queen, but since the Pope and other Catholic leaders regarded Mary as the true Queen of England, Philip uses Mary's death to obtain papal approval for war. The "murder" of the last legitimate Catholic in the line of succession gives Philip the pretext he needs to invade England and he oversees the departure of the Armada from Cádiz.
Raleigh asks to leave for the New World, which an emotional Elizabeth forbids, instead knighting him and making him Captain of the Royal Guard. Bess reveals to Raleigh in private that she is pregnant with his child, and pleads with him to leave. Instead, the couple marries in secret. When Elizabeth confronts Bess later, she confesses that she is indeed pregnant with Raleigh's child, and that Raleigh is her husband. An infuriated Elizabeth berates Bess, reminding her that she cannot marry without royal consent. She then banishes Bess from court and has Raleigh imprisoned for the crime of seducing a ward of the Queen.
As the Spanish Armada begins its approach up the English Channel, Elizabeth forgives Bess and sets Raleigh free to join Sir Francis Drake in the battle. Elizabeth gives her Speech to the Troops at Tilbury, while seated on a war horse and wearing full plate armour. The ships of the Armada vastly outnumber England's, but a major storm blows the Armada toward the beaches, endangering its formation and ships. The ships of the Armada drop anchor, and the Armada becomes vulnerable for English fire ships. Elizabeth, back at her coastal headquarters, walks out to the cliffs and watches the Spanish Armada sink in flames as the English prevail over Spain.
Elizabeth visits Walsingham on his deathbed and tells her old friend to rest. She then visits Raleigh and Bess and blesses their child. Elizabeth seemingly triumphs personally through her ordeal, again resigned to her role as the Virgin Queen and mother to the English people.

Review: This elaborate , colorful costumer drama packs outstanding performances from Cate Blanchet as an impulsive queen , Clive Owen as a dashing and arrogant commandant , besides a top-notch support cast giving strong acting , as the charismatic Geoffrey Rush as Sir Francis Walsingham , Samantha Morton , Jordi Molla , Rhys Ifans, Abbie Cornish , among them .
Well, the story is interesting and Cate Blanchett play her role very good, but the story is stretched and at the end when Spain attacks with its armada is quickly finishes end the attack scene is really short.They could have made this a spectacular movie, nice story, great costumes.
Geoffrey Rush makes the best out of the very little that he's given to work with and Abbie Cornish and Samantha Morton are each great in their parts.It's also worth a mention that the costumes and the locations are spectacular, paired with a few moments of good story-telling (only if those moments would last all through the film) they make a few absolutely extraordinary scenes.
"Elizabeth," the first film, was about a young woman coming to the throne in a period of great turmoil, and how she dealt with that It was love in the context of power, betrayal, and survival In "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," we're dealing with the most famous aspects of her regime, the Spanish Armada, the Babington Plot, which was a major plot against her, and Walter Raleigh bringing back the very early understanding of the New World, and the horizons beyond Britain It is the exploration of unrestricted power Elizabeth, as cultured and as intelligent and eloquent as she was, had never left the shores of England And into her court, strides an explorer who has literally been where the maps end The gallant Raleigh (Clive Owen) was a free spirit who thrills the queen with his tales and discoveries at sea  The classic 16th-century adventurer who doesn't play by any official rules, and he does bring into the world of the court something very alluring, enigmatic and charismatic, which has a big impact on the queen The relationship between Raleigh and Elizabeth was very complicated There were things holding Elizabeth back "We mortals have many weaknesses; we feel too much, hurt too much or too soon we die, but we do have the chance of love." These words were spoken by Sir Walter Raleigh to the Virgin QuennIt's very rare that the Queen takes interest in a man, and she does At this special point, England was very weak militarily Elizabeth had discharged the navy And once again it was the old problem of religious instability, which harasses the human race frequently Anybody that's interested in this period of history will find it fascinating just how capable Elizabeth was in regards to how she dealt with the captive Queen of Scots Mary Stuart (Samantha Morton) had great respect for the Protestant Elizabeth, and was remarkably intrigued by her, and desperate to meet her, and fascinated For several years Elizabeth suffered about her execution because she really believed two things She believed that any queen was divine She accepted as true that her Catholic cousin was there by the will of God, and therefore, Mary was there by the will of God And in executing Mary, she would disintegrate her one belief that she herself was divine Mary found it in death Elizabeth had to find it in life So if you look at the Armada, Elizabeth finally does become divine, and that's why we had to admire how the scene of the Armada is shot, by Shekhar Kapur, in that way It's not actually a fiery sea battle between two countries It's a 'Holy War' with Spain Therefore, the defining moments of the Armada is when Elizabeth walks up across the verdant cliffs in flowing white nightgown She's no longer the Avenging Queen She's instead a supernatural being, a disembodied soul defeating the enemy, dominating the fearless of the waves, the force of the storm, and the strength of fire Dripping with intrigues, plots, battles, mysteries, and strong emotions, the film captured the ecclesiastical spaces of the cathedrals to look more like a palace environment It also captured the feel of the16th century architecture, linking and matching it to the proper locations.
Cate Blanchett reprises her role as the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, and is the film's greatest highlight.
Director Kapur does stress that she was the "peoples" queen!The story continues from where Cate Blanchett's young, flighty, and reckless Elizabeth made her finale masculine-like entrance in the prequel, "Elizabeth", as the Virgin Queen with her face heavily laced with the 'white-as-milke' make-up - an image of a queen ready to lead her citizens.At a deliberate slow pacing, the introduction with its scenes, characters and their dialog prepare the audience to receive Elizabeth as the Queen with a more focused, more rigid personality, in charge of hers and her country's destinies.
She is Queen of Scots, but she was raised in the FRENCH court, and was (briefly) Queen of France before the death of her sickly husband.The film was rather complicated, as those with little or no knowledge of 16th Century British history could easily be lost - many of the characters aren't actually introduced properly, and it took my family some time to work out what exactly was going on.
There is no point having white horses with flowing manes, Clive Owen swinging from the burning ship and Cate Blanchett stood on a headland looking like a figure who's lost its way from the titanic movie.
This period of her life is familiar from a number of previous films and miniseries, but this time, the psychological complexity behind such a fascinating historical figure has been downgraded in favor of romance novel plot turns and paper-thin character development.The set-up is rich with possibilities only partially realized on screen.
Elizabeth inspires her troops to face off with the much larger Spanish Armada, and the rest, as they say, is history.It's no surprise that Cate Blanchett commands the screen in the title role and does her best to fill in the blanks left by the routine script.
As Philip, Jordi Mollà is forced to play the king as a religious zealot, while Abbie Cornish's Bess strikes me as far too contemporary in manner to be credible as a lady-in-waiting, especially with the ongoing hints of lesbianism and a soft porn-like lovemaking scene with Raleigh.Guy Dyas' production design, Alexandra Byrne's costumes and Remi Adefarasin's cinematography are all impressive in their splendor and meticulous detail, though I found the music by Craig Armstrong and A.R. Rahman far too intrusive.
The Armada battle is all-wrong with even the guns looking like they were from the Napoleonic Period.Also Mary Queen of Scots probably had a French accent, as in the Helen Mirren version, as Mary was raised in France.If you want a great scripted film just watch "The Lion in Winter." It always astounds me why filmmakers go to such effort with production values but can't get the nuts and bolts right..
As she lowers her defenses and allows Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), a charming pirate with news of a world she has never seen, to come close, we could almost say she was only a woman during that time; no title, no obligations, pure will to be what she feels like.
I am somewhat baffled by this movie.On the face of it, this is an immensely powerful, beautifully shot and splendidly acted follow-up to the excellent 'Elizabeth', featuring a cast to die for, a top-notch script and a wardrobe of enormous expense.Never mind that it 'plays fast and loose with history', or that it feels like a Tudor Braveheart - I can put up with such minor irritants for the sake of a good yarn.Yet somewhere along the line, this movie becomes deeply unsatisfying.
That absolute monarchy and divine right are the only way to really run the town, so long as the monarch in question is virtuous, English and Protestant.Of course, all of these things are fine and well for the story itself; the misfortune is that Kapur broadcasts these ideas through the film as his message to the audience.It perhaps doesn't help that Philip of Spain is portrayed as a demented dancing dwarf with Tourette's Syndrome.I'm going to watch this movie again at some point, but I have to say that it is, I think, a glorious Ozymandine failure..
Such direction involved blocking the characters form the camera with all manner of stupid objects from frames to walls and lights, shooting from ridiculously pointless angles such as ceilings and poorly edited scenes, jumping from time frames across England and Spain with no continuity of what is happening throughout the story.There have been so many better recent adaptations of Elizabeth.
Cate Blanchette and Clive Owen bring magic to the screen in this beautifully filmed and costumed tale of ELIZABETH THE GOLDEN AGE in a historical thriller with a sensational cast and a brilliant production from Shekhar Kapur.
Cate Blanchette should have "Oscar Nom" attached to her name when the Kudo season starts to roll and the film captures the chapter of English history that is a monument to the English throne of Elizabeth.Geoffrey Rush and Samantha Morton, as Mary Queen of Scots, add to the strength of the story and the characters which have made such an impact in world history.
A film with the same subject (England's most successful queen), the same leading actress (Cate Blanchett) and the same director (Shekhar Kapur) as the wonderful 1998 work "Elizabeth" excites great expectations and, while there are many jewels here, sadly all that glitters is not gold.
Again the acting is particularly fine with Blanchett a tour de force.The focus is narrower in time, beginning in 1585 and climaxing with the defeat of the Spanish Armada three years later in action scenes absent from the first film.
The oddest thing, however, is that the completely uncalled for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" is actually quite entertaining and might've received higher praise had the intrusive music score not induced such a numbing headache.Blanchett, of course, is terrific, and doesn't seem to mind that the screenwriters have turned her signature character into a woman with split personalities: a raving love-scorned woman in private who constantly crumbles under pressure, and a powerful monarch who commands the wind and becomes a divinity to her people in public.
The sequel suffers from this lack of development for its titular historical icon, but Blanchett rules the madhouse with an iron fist, chewing the scenery when necessary for dramatic effect and maximum entertainment value.The sequel also suffers from too much focus on a silly love triangle involving Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh (an uninspired Clive Owen), and one of her ladies in waiting (a ravishingly gorgeous but ultimately lifeless Abbie Cornish).
These include Elizabeth's divisive relationship with Mary Stuart (a blistering Samantha Morton doing an entertaining bit of over-acting), and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, whose sinking is done up in a rock opera style that serves as a guilty pleasure to watch.Meanwhile, director Kapur, who never saw an overhead shot, candlelit scene, or 360 degree crane movement he didn't love, uses his bigger budget to ridiculously grand effect creating immaculate set designs populated with over the top costuming and epic pageantry.
At worst, the first film avoids looking like it's brightly filmed on the set of "Friends." And, strangely, in a story about an historical figure whose beauty, or loss of it, Cate Blanchett is not only very attractive but the only character that doesn't age.
Excellent acting, great cinematography, well-flowing editing, and just a pleasure to watch.The dynamic between Elizabeth, Walter Raleigh and Bess is nicely played out, making clear the difficult and unfair position Elizabeth is in as a woman whose only way of truly maintaining power in the eyes of those around her, as much as they try to convince her otherwise, is to not subjugate herself to any man, as much as she wants to be with one for personal reasons.
I was amazed to look at the user-comments afterward and see all the complaints, nitpicking nonsense like "the music is intrusive." The score, like the production values, is just fine.It's tough to beat a foursome like Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen and Samantha Morton for good acting but - for me, just like another DVD released this week ("The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford"), the star of the film was the photographer.
Geoffry Rush appears as Sir Francis Walsingham adviser to the Queen but is better suited to playing an Evil Pirate in line with his acting ability.There have been much better films about the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first and the events at the time but students should stick to the documentaries and History texts if they want academic credibility.I think this film would have been more entertaining if Shekhar Kapur gave it the Bollywood treatment with lots of Indian costumes , singing and dancing around decorated trees and re;eased it in his native India.
They apply to Cate Blanchett's looks, her talent, her sheer overwhelming allure as Elizabeth, the Golden Queen of England's Golden Age. Unfortunately, the movie itself does not quite live up to the limitless beauty, artistry and sheer animal fascination of Cate the Great.Elizabeth was always decisive, dramatic, and intelligent, but this movie wanders in a daze from dark, dank, chilly looking rooms where nasty people mumble about plots and murder, to lavish and almost comically inappropriate love scenes, to huge phony looking vistas of stormy seas and galloping horses, and then back to more torture, more mumbling, and more incoherent emotional fireworks.Cate Blanchett, not yet forty, is so stunning in every frame it seems laughable to see her grapple with Elizabeth's fear of old age and decay.
Greydanus writes: "A lurid sort of Christopher Hitchens vision of history pervades Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Shekhar Kapur's sequel to his 1998 art-house hit Elizabeth.The earlier film, which made a star of Cate Blanchett as the eponymous Virgin Queen, celebrated the triumph of bright, happy Elizabethan Protestantism over the dark, unwholesome Catholic world of Bloody Mary.
Cate Blanchett, though Elizabeth does look a little more youthful than I expected her to be, was simply mesmerising in the title role, and Geoffrey Rush(an example of an actor who rarely disappoints in anything he's in) and Clive Owen both give rock solid performances.
And unfortunately, for the most part, they missed that chance.While the first Elizabeth film served as a wondrous combination between dramatization of a fascinating period in England's history, deliciously lavish production design, and an intense, amazingly dedicated character study on Cate Blanchett's part as she dubiously explores every possible nook and cranny of the mysterious Virgin Queen.
Just watch how broken she is as she mourns the treachery of her own sister, Mary Queen of Scots, expertly played by Samantha Morton and also the only of the film's plot points that was actually remotely interesting to watch unfold.I was greatly looking forward to this film; the historical costume drama is a consistently reliable genre, and the concept of the combination of epic swashbuckling action-adventure with the dramatic depiction of Elizabeth's reign, as well as the notion of Blanchett returning to arguably her greatest film role, got me perhaps a little over-excited for this release, which made the poor reviews and subsequent box office performance even more disappointing than I would have expected.
The film indeed suffered from some inconsolable plot weaknesses, but does feature exquisitely lavish production design and an expertly poignant, rounded and fantastically intense performance from the always great Cate Blanchett, and that's enough to make it even somewhat worth a look..
Admittedly, I went into this expecting perhaps not a better film than it's predecessor, but with the fine cast attached to it, and Cate reprising one of her best roles, I had hoped at the very least to see a film that could sustain my attention-- which it failed to do miserably.This so-called historical drama felt more like a bad, third-rate Early-90's USA made-for-television movie.
No regrets here, but it wasn't as good as the first and won't be considered for even 10% as many top 10 lists.This film merely jumps to a later part of the queen's life and focuses on her relationship with adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) and the looming threat of the Spanish Armada.
I had high expectations when I entered the local movie palace from the 1920s, which the film failed to meet.My only reaction to Geoffrey Rush was to think that I had seen him to it better before and that he was old and tired in the role.Clive Owen brought too little to his role and left me with more questions that answers about Raleigh.Jordi Mollà was opaque as King Philip II of Spain.Cate Blanchett added nothing to our understanding of Elizabeth I that we hadn't learned from 'Elizabeth' and HBO's excellent 'Elizabeth I'.
Director Shekhar Kapur is back at the helm, though for some reason he has only made one other film (Four Feathers) since the 1998 Elizabeth.Clive Owen plays swashbuckling Sir Walter Raleigh who charms his way into the Queen's inner circle and more than charms Abbie Cornish (A Good Year), the Queen's personal favorite of her court.
(The last period of her life, 1588-1603, still awaits a final sequel.) This film is not as successful as its predecessor, but the central performance by Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth is if anything even more amazing, glorious, and breath-taking this time around.
Almost a decade after the release of "Elizabeth," director Shekhar Capur and star Cate Blanchett return in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," a film which loosely bases its plot from the life of Queen Elizabeth I of England during her 27th year of reign.After vowing a life of celibacy, Elizaveth is now pressured into marrying by her adviser, Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), in an effort.
Very Good Biopic - Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Clive Owen, as Walter Raleigh, almost steals this film away from Cate Blanchett, who plays Queen Elizabeth.
This movie is the sequel to "Elizabeth - The Virgin Queen" (1998) and, like all sequels, suffers from an inferiority complex towards the original film.