Review: Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the follow-up to Elizabeth, released in 1998. Director Shekhar Kapur and lead Cate Blanchett are back together after the original became a surprise hit. Indian director, Australian actress, English Queen. Would'vethunkit? But it worked, and since then Cate has become a widely respected actress.

The first film covered Queen Elizabeth's rise to power, while this film focuses on England's conflict with Spain and that whole Spanish Inquisition thing. I keep hearing "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!".

So Spain decides to invade England and kill The Virgin Queen (or "that whore", King Philip of Spain's pet name for her... I'm sure that the subtitles lose something in translation) in retaliation for beheading her cousin Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic, in retaliation for attempting to assassinate Elizabeth. Apparently, that was the justification they'd been waiting for to invade England and replace Elizabeth with a new queen, Philip's child. Anyway, Mary's body then picks up her own head, jumps on a horse, and rides across the ocean to kick some serious Spaniard butt. Okay, that last sentence was all a lie, but if you do see this film, I promise you'll see a horse swim.

Anyway, Spain's military is far superior to England's and sends an armada to conquer them. All that stands between the huge fleet and England is hunky Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) and a thunderstorm and... well, if you don't know what happens I won't spoil it for you.

I have much internal conflict to work out here. I like Kapur (who introduced the film and did an extensive Q&A afterward) and deeply admire Blanchett. But the film didn't always work for me. The script was a little clunky in places, lacking flow from one scene to the next. I'm still trying to work out if it was the script or merely editing. Cate seemed to be overacting in spots. I'm not saying it was a bad movie, but certainly it fell short of my expectations. I'll probably be burned at the stake for saying so. It's been nice knowing you all. My imdb rating: 7/10.