Review of Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) by Laurence C — 11 Mar 2009

Do you like Barbie Dolls?

More precisely : do you like 16th Century Barbie Doll Games?

I think I might have a film to recommend you. In this one, the dolls come along dressed in artfully poofy costumes, and are part of ridiculously elaborate sets-- best of all, they are essentially mechanical chatterboxes that spit out about a dozen or so of the same would-be meaningful lines over and over again. No, scratch that : BEST of all, their relationships are summed up right inside their boxes, so you can start playing love triangles as soon as they are unwrapped!

I have no desire to endure such a film, trust me. But as a class assignment, performing its autopsy was promising. I had previously heard a whole lot of... erm, 'praise' concerning the pompous excesses of (and I quote film critic T. Brayton) "Elizabeth : Bigger & Badder". But really, as much as I wanted this period extravaganza to be explosively camp, it turns out it's merely a navel-gazing bore repeating the same tricks over and over again until the deadening Battleship climax.

And you know what? It's not that much fun to watch, even when my very own cynical detachment is tickled right from scene one. Everything unfolds like one would expect, and with every scene piling up increasingly majestuous production values, everything remotely human is instantly crushed, leaving no room for nuance or subtlety. It doesn't help that the writing shamelessly pits the brave, tormented English empire against the cartoonishly diabolical Spanish one with zero shades of grey, but that's not what's important. Really, it's just a subplot to the soapy melodrama part of the story-- or, hmmm, maybe it's the opposite. I'm not quite sure, and I don't quire care.

Either way, it's a mess. We get no insight of the times in which Elizabeth was living, since most of the action unfolds in that damned throne room. In those regards, I must say the way Kapur enjoys filming by lovingly spinning around his subject, bypassing pillars and chandeliers, grows tiresome very early-- but not as much as his tick of hanging dangerously high cameras above his lavish sets for colossal establishing shots right in the middle of his character exchanges. If that's not a sign of pretentiousness, then I don't know what. Also similarly ponderous is the requisite Braveheart inspirational speech, lensed in a disturbing overflow of natural lighting.

There's also the inevitably shrill and fiery score by Craig Armstrong and A.R. Rahman, which contributes to many, many laughs. It goes without saying that the most beautiful compositions (beautiful white horse jumping off boat in slow-motion? or queen dressed in light silk drapes on top of a windy hill by the sea during a thunderstorm? anyone?) are highlighted by the incessant pounding of that godawful music.

Under the weight of this vomity gorgeousness are the performers, all lead by the thundering theatrics of Blanchett's second take on a character she masterfully interpreted in Kapur's first feature. That she is able to inject more than just a little humanity into a role that gets the wax mannequin treatment here is not surprising-- that she is able to keep a straight face all the way is. Beneath her are a handful of talented performers that leave little to no impression, with Clive Owen playing the handsome pirate with all the annoying cardboard handsomeness that it implies and Abbie Cornish being, eh, blonde. Only Jordi Molla plays the camp card, and to a somewhat greater effect.

Bottom line : all kitschy fireworks, no substance ; not nearly as hilarious as I had expected, but not normal enough to pretend this is an actual Good Movie. If the promised third outing continues with the same Almighty Hammer of Bigness, I think we will have in our hands a film that is able to block out the sun.