30 Second Review: Elizabeth, The Golden Age

by Vitaliy Vladimirov

I’d read somewhere it’s taken Shekhar Kapur, the director of the first Elizabeth movie, all these years (nearly a decade) to convince Cate Blanchett to reprise the titular role that made stars of them both. A word of advice for Blanchett - You should have said “No.”

I haven’t seen the first film, but I found this one overwhelmingly long and disjointed. At just under two hours the movie plodded for as long as all the years it covered. The film awkwardly spends little of its time on the Holy War England faces and the epic Spanish loss to the British in favor of frivolous court scenes, romantic intrigue and CGI sea battles. Also incessant and unnecessary is the director’s determination to rewrite a powerful monarch into little more than an angst-ridden teenager with astounding historical inaccuracies.

Even though Blanchett keeps the film aloft with her immense acting power, presence and grace, she is no match for the overwhelming detail of her costumes. A small detail compared to the movie’s other shortcomings, but they are simply tiresome to look at after the five years it takes the film to end.

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