Review of Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) by Filipeneto — 03 Apr 2018

This movie is the sequel to "Elizabeth - The Virgin Queen" (1998) and, like all sequels, suffers from an inferiority complex towards the original film. It is a regular historical film, which depicts a key moment of Elizabeth I's reign of England: the Invincible Armada and the English resistance to Spanish ambitions. And Cate Blanchett (who continues to give life to the English queen) is still brilliant in her role, almost being able to become the queen that herself. Unfortunately, as in the first film, this effort follows without the merit and appreciation of the critics and the Hollywood Academy (the Oscar nomination for Best Actress that year did not pass that same). Geoffrey Rush continues to give body to Sir Francis Walsingham and do it with great talent and ability, even though his character has not here the strength it had previously. Clive Owen is perfect in the role of Sir Walter Raleigh and reaches, with this film, one of the most interesting works of his career so far.

Historically, unlike the previous film, it didn't seem very able to be faithful to the truth. The script is too imaginative and too much focused on an unlikely and theatrical affair between the Queen and Walter Raleigh. The Spanish Armada is barely portrayed and the struggle between English and Spanish, the natural film climax, ends up being completely emptied of relevance, which makes no sense and puts in question the film edition, and the quality of the script. In fact, there was no ability to foresee the importance of this point for the film's outcome. If the director (Shekhar Kapur) and writers (William Nicholson and Michael Hirst) thought that Blanchett's great interpretation, a very good cast, scenery, clothes and some romantic suggestions would be enough to save the film, they're wrong. Do not make omelets without eggs, says the people, rightly so. This film had everything to be better, to match its predecessor, but a bad script and editing laid everything to lose.

Despite its a very still and boring movie (sometimes seems that people have forgotten that they're almost to be invaded), this film is quite reasonable and worth seeing, especially for the excellent work of the actors.