Review of Elizabeth (1998) by Ericc — 05 Apr 2009
Saw this for the first time a few days ago, and I'm astonished by how bad a film it is. How do you take such an interesting and entertaining slice of history and turn it in to such a bland, unengaging movie? Too often, the movie is overdramatic when it needs to be subtle.
The actors bounce around from overacting to just phoning in their perfomances (which is wildly disapointing considering the incredible cast). The director is clueless how to shoot the movie, clearly believing all that is needed to establish mood and atmosphere is turning down the lights.
The script is completely generic and empty period babble (those that compare this to the Godfather; have you ever even seen the Godfather?). And the edidting, my god. The scenes are just lazily slapped together, giving the film an awful and confounding flow that I can only compare to a daytime soap opera.
Obviously, fans of period epics will gobble this up (and the Academy loves them some period epics). For everyone else, this is just a massive mess of a movie. I can't even imagine what the universally panned sequel was like.
This review of Elizabeth (1998) was written by Ericc on 05 Apr 2009.
Elizabeth has generally received positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
