Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Even though Cate is still excellent and incredibly asexual, which is nothing unusual for her, the film itself is quite boring. Yes, there are significant historical events featured in it, but one feels like a different director made this. Something like the difference between The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. However, in the case of Elizabeth, the director remains the same, but after nine years, they're trying to be overly pompous and overly dramatic, resulting in a bloated film that can't decide what's more important - the queen's personal life or historical events. Neither aspect is as well balanced in this case as it was in the film Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen. (26/02/2014)

A big historical film that doesn’t know what it wants to be. On the one hand there are attempts at some sort of psychological storyline that often fall flat due to situations that are either awfully unfitting for a concept like this, or with a logic that is very misguided. As a result, the characters lose all their humanity, the viewer can get under the skin of the heroes, which is why some emotional outbursts en up causing laughter. On the other hand, for pure popcorn fun, there isn’t enough action. The camera and the direction also feel quite schizophrenic, in a sea of utterly unoriginal scenes, you get glimpses of something that with a bit of ambition could be called a signature, but alas, these are only exceptions. All this makes Elizabeth: The Golden Age nothing but an average historical film that is saved from total catastrophe mostly by the good actors. Kapur should try making a smaller genre piece. (14/10/2008)

Nice set designs, gorgeous dresses and a great Cate Blanchett unfortunately does not a good movie make. The script is still quite crucial, and if it is not exactly simple in terms of the historical events portrayed, then it is very important to consider to what detail the creators want to go here. And they decided to go into such detail that I was emotionally absolutely detached and the only moment where one of my eyelids moved a little was the ending, where Clive Oven would have made even a statue cry. At the first glance, the viewer may think that the film may not be so bad a period drama, but unfortunately all that glitters is not gold. (11/10/2019)

As much as Clive Owen has an overwhelming charisma and his gaze makes more than one viewer's knees buckle, his character of Sir Raleigh is nothing but big popcorn indulgence, and his finger-licking love affairs (with both Bess and Elizabeth) turn the film into a soap opera. It called for more medieval darkness, dirt, rawness and backstage intrigue (which made the previous episode so interesting) and less implausible sugarplums. Cate Blanchett is initially superb, but over time, as the atmosphere thickens and the clouds gather over England, her Elizabeth becomes affected, theatrical and, for me, not very believable. The result is average, neither a full-fledged historical film nor an exciting probe into Elizabeth's soul and her inner feelings. (03/02/2008)

The sequel to Queen Elizabeth has lost absolutely nothing of its quality compared to the first part. Once again, it is a perfect period drama with great costumes, hairstyles, music, cinematography, production design and last but not least, the great performances of Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush. Compared to the first part, where I didn't have any major complaints, I would point out here that I was a bit puzzled by the final battle at sea. It seemed a little fast to me. But whatever! In short, another example of a (nearly) perfect historical drama. (20/08/2010)