"Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
In describing this film I cannot help but emphasize the term 'propaganda' because that is exactly what it is and exactly what it feels like. The blaring, pretensious score hits you over the head with the demand of the filmmaker that this person is good and that person is evil. The costumes are good as many have pointed out, but the sets are still bad (not quite as bad as the first film but darn close) and the story is disjointed, choppy and forced - forced to an extent to be considered Elizabethan propaganda. One gets the impression that the filmmaker is determined to see all of us bow down and kiss the hem of the Queen's dress -OR ELSE! Cate does as fine a job as she did in the original but she is constantly giving grandiose and unbelievable speeches and her acting talents cannot save her from what is essentially a miserable script. Jordi Molla has the misfortune to play King Philip II of Spain who is so one dimensional it defies belief that any modern, fairly respected filmmaker could have crafted him so. He is portrayed as a scheming religious zealout with no redeeming qualities whatsoever; part of some global Catholic conspiracy to crush freedom and progress. His stance as the evil villain could not have been more forced down our throats if he had been portrayed in Victorian black twirling a handlebar moustache.
The film finds Queen Elizabeth I being pressured by Sir Francis Walsingham (played by Geoffrey Rush who is much better than this) to find a husband and produce an heir. As we know, she resists such pressure and instead falls in love with Sir Walter Raleigh (played by Clive Owen) who takes the place that Joseph Fiennes had in the first film with his Earl of Leicester. There is a subplot about an affair between Raleigh and the Queen's favorite lady in waiting but nothing is accomplished to satisfaction in the movie because of the impression one gets that the filmmaker was desperately trying to cram every Elizabethan event into a single movie. The Babbington Plot is portrayed with gross inaccuracy (Mary Queen of Scots was quite innocent in the whole affair and the evidence presented against her was forged as most all scholars now agree) and, as Walsingham nobly confesses, it is her execution which gives Philip II of Spain a just cause to launch the Spanish Armada and the hoped for invasion of England. This is specifically portrayed as a Catholic "holy war" and that phrase gets thrown around alot. Funny, isn't it, how at a time when the Western World is confronted by Islamic terrorists fighting a jihad against us it is never politically correct to state this obvious fact and the only people we see on the big screen waging holy wars are wicked Spanish Catholics. Liberal self guilt was never so obvious as when comparing how the Muslims were treated in the film "The Kingdom of Heaven" (read my review here) and how Catholics are treated in "Elizabeth the Golden Age".
Enemies at home and enemies abroad are how ALL Catholics are seen in this movie; and openly so. Worse still, the Protestantism of Elizabeth I is not even presented as an alternative our seperated brothers and sisters could be proud of. In this movie, Protestantism is equated with a sort of libertarian, conscience driven, sunshine and lollipops religion that is not much of a religion at all. That is why Protestants should be offended by this movie as well because the Catholics are portrayed as the most devout and zelous Christians and are universally vilified for that very reason! Any person that is staunchly religious in this movie is evil and that is as deep as it gets. Everything builds toward the final climax at sea between the English Sea Dogs and the Spanish Armada which is a big let down. Not much is shown and what is hits the screen as little more than alot of computer generated shots of ship to ship fighting and symbols of Catholic defeat with priests drowning and rosaries sinking beneath the waves. It is from first to last absolutely atrocious and about the only thing I can say that the movie does well is in presenting a modern, agnostic interpretation of the "Black Legend" (read myth) which imprinted anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish bigotry in the English speaking world which survives to this day. If that was the goal of "Elizabeth the Golden Age" then in that regard alone could it be considered a success. However, most audiences see past this and even those for those uninformed masses who do not, it is still simply a bad, patchwork and overly preachy movie at the end of the day which is not enjoyable in the least.
My review: a big thumbs down for Queen Elizabeth and her Hollywood sycophants
