Elizabeth

Rating:
Summary: fabric of truth
Review: The movie is filled with wonderful texture and color--in costuming, characterization, cinematography, and in dialogue. The color red sets Elizabeth apart from the first scene--her red hair and red sash. During the course of the movie the color red also symbolizes Elizabeth's blood--"I am my father's daughter." It represents the blood of all who die as England moves from the darkness of Queen Mary's reign into the light of the Golden Age. It is fascinating to watch the transition of Princess Elizabeth dancing in the meadow--to imprisonment in the tower--to being crowned as England's monarch--we watch as the spontaneous, earthy girl undergoes a metamorphis and emerges as a calculating and brilliant queen. Her gender could be her undoing--but Elizabeth outwits the men in her court who wish to witness her downfall by becoming "the virgin queen" and aligning herself with the powerful female icon in the Catholic church--the virgin Mary. Who knows if any of this is true--but it has the 'ring of truth' in it--and creates great suspense as the story unfolds.

Rating:
Summary: a bold interpretation
Review: An slightly overlooked film of 1998 that profiled and jettisoned Cate Blanchett into the star she would obliviously become. Dynamic and fantastical roles such as this and Galadriel (of course of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) are the ones she is fit do excel in. She's been in other 'street reality' roles and those movies do not cater to her potential. Director Shekhar in additon did a wonderful job bringing out her performance as Elizabeth I.
A lot has been said about the historical accuracy of the movie. The movie would've insulted the intelligence of a lot of audiences had it tried to be an infallible translation. Movies that attempt to be a true documentorial journal often fail the attention of the audience. I'm sure Mel Gibson's Braveheart would've suffered greatly had it been historically compliant.What the film does do is mince fact with situational conjecture with entertaining results.
I found the cast overall to be well within reason of what the film was looking for. While Kathy Burke's portrayal of Mary Tudor might've raised the eyebrows of some, I believe it was a necessary element to help set the stage for her and Elizabeth's 'confrontation'. Vincent Kasssel's Duc d'Anjou was a comical and engaging personality.
Obviously apparent are all the visuals such as costumes, sets and an underscored detail to sound as well. A lot has been said of all of those aspects and they are merited. Shekhar Kapur had a style and vision for this film and it really shows onscreen.
The DVD comes with the congratulatory few extras and I liked Shekhar's commentary. It may dispel a few assumptions made by the casual movie-goer on his intentions for the project. I may have given the DVD four stars, but it would not have reflected the experience and honest effort put in.

Rating:
Summary: Blanchett's noteworthy performance.
Review: Australia's coolest blonde for Hollywood Cate Blanchett should have won the Best Actress of 1998 Academy Awards over Gwyneth Paltrow in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, no matter that she already won in the Golden Globe. Her pale white beauty with the ruthless stare is incomparably real for the role Queen Elizabeth I. Her acting and perfect English accent and speeches strove to be among the A-lists i.e. Meryl Streep etc.

From the beginning when Elizabeth is wrongly accused to be sentenced, the times during her political standing against all rivalries and their hidden agendas, to the end she rises to her feet as the ultimate Virgin Queen, Blanchett is fully in control of her powerful acting and plays her parts stately. And when it comes to her affair with Sir Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes), Blanchett's soft feminine side shines through radiantly.

This DVD will always remain one of my favourite period films for a very long time.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Costume Drama with Boffo Blanchett!
Review: As long as you don't rely on this to pass your English History exam, you will really enjoy this exquisite costume drama about the early reign of Elizabeth I. Beautiful, Oscar nomintaed Cate Blanchett is magnificent as the "Virgin Queen" and even Fiennes can be forgiven for resurrecting his "Shakespeare in Love" persona. The art direction, score, locations and supporting cast are all stellar, although one wonders what they must have paid Sir John Geilgud to be propped up for a handful of lines as the English-accented Pope--an uncalled for bit of stunt casting. "Bloody" Mary Tudor, as played by Kathy Burke, deserves a biopic all her own! Long live the Queen...

Rating:
Summary: A great Elizabethan phantasmagoria.
Review: Several reviewers have commented on how little this movie has to to with specific history, and they are quite correct.As history, the movie is a mishmash of events that occurred years apart, together with a fair amount of "vigorous fancy". This isn't really a historical film in the usual sense, but a tremendous historical fantasia-on-the-facts, very much like Josef von Sternberg's similar film from the thirties, THE SCARLET EMPRESS, with Marlene Dietrich as Catherine the Great, or for that matter, John Boorman's Arthurian fantasy EXCALIBUR. Like these movies, visual impact and atmosphere are running at about 400 horsepower, and, like THE SCARLET EMPRESS, the version of the world it presents is very fantasticated. The Czarist court in the 18th century barely resembled the Grimm's Fairy Tales world von Sternberg creates in the Dietrich film, the Dark Ages were nothing like the shining plate-armored legend-world of EXCALIBUR, and the Tudor court barely resembled the incredible renaissance fantasy shown in ELIZABETH. Once you accept that the film is about Elizabeth I in a general, rather than a specific sense, you'll be able to appreciate it, and can stop being annoyed by the fact that, say, Robert Dudley was never complicit in any plots against the Queen (If you want to see a more historically accurate version of Elizabeth's reign, try the equally-terrific-in-a-different-way ELIZABETH R miniseries, with Glenda Jackson). And for all of ELIZABETH's deviations from fact, the movie ends with a really penetrating insight into the way that Elizabeth helped ease England through the Reformation by transforming herself into "Gloriana",the Virgin Queen, living embodiment of the nation and a walking icon/substitute for the Virgin Mary. The acting is superb, Cate Blanchett gives a truly tremendous performance, and Shekar Kapur's direction is both powerful and elegant (Even if there is a minor blooper when Mary de Guise's corpse can be seen shutting its eyes).

Rating:
Summary: Costume Drama, Not History 101
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and quite frankly am at a loss when I read the negative reviews of folks upset by the historical inaccuracies. Who expects a history lesson from a Hollywood film? That's what reading is for.The point for me is, was the film an engaging and entertaining costume drama? My answer is a resounding yes. My only 'historical' problem was the insertion of the selection from the Mozart Requiem at the end of the film. Talk about a glaring anachronism!

Rating:
Summary: Shame they had to tart up the material
Review: This a very mediocre offering given the forces that the filmmakers had at their disposal. I wished I were watching Elizabeth R (the old BBC series with Glenda Jackson) the whole time.

They did not have the courage to think this material would carry the audience's interest by itself. I'm probably in the minority of people who are intensely interested in the Elizabethan era, but it's annoying to have them tart the thing up like this.

They didn't need to put in the unlikely scenes with Elizabeth in bed with Robert Dudley, they didn't need to use modern orchestras for the music, and if they had gone with cheaper costumes and black-and-white film, I wouldn't have cared. As long as the story line is sensible and the acting is good.

The acting is pretty good. Cate Blanchett is fine. I didn't like the script. As a fan of music from that period, I was annoyed to have them drag Elgar into it.

Don't bother with this. Watch Elizabeth R instead.

Rating:
Summary: Elizabeth must be rolling in her grave.
Review: This movie wants to be the British answer to the "Queen Margot" with Isabelle Adjani - and fails. Like "Queen Margot" it's a "dirty" historical film - I mean, literally. Everybody looks like they've never taken a bath in their lives, greasy hair and all. You can almost smell the stench just by watching it. I'm sure that may be very historically accurate, but I dislike it just the same. It's very arty, very pretentious, with lots of violence and irreverence toward historical figures. Life's too short. ... Enough.
Cate Blanchet looks ridiculous, but never more so than when she's dancing, relaxing and flirting. That's not how you get to be one of the most famous female monarchs in history. One would never understand, by watching this movie, what was the big deal about Elizabeth, and how she earned the respect of posterity.

Rating:
Summary: Heavy the head that wears the Crown
Review: I have always been fascinated by strong women. Throughout history, women like Cleopatra, Marie de Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Catherine the Great, and Empress Maria Teresa Hapsburg have transcended the limits and constraints of biological destiny and gone on to exhibit far more fire and steel than their male contemporaries. One of the greatest is Elizabeth I, Queen of England in its "Golden Age", daughter of Henry VIII and sister of the mad and tyrannical Bloody Mary.

Director Shekhar Kapur's outlandishly good "Elizabeth" is the definitive chronicle of the Virgin Queen's troubled and frenzied reign. With the searingly, oddly beautiful Kate Blanchett in the lead, "Elizabeth" is a roaringly good and finely balanced tale, lushly delivered that conjures up a baleful and troubled time whose characters are perfectly classical but eerily contemporary and realistic.

This is a gorgeous but grim tale of metamorphosis---of both a young girl, and the nascent country entrusted to her.
Elizabeth did far more than merely escape the confines of her gender. The years of her youthful reign comprised a time of great peril to England's sovereignty, with the Kings of France and Spain vying to cripple a potential rival and seapower, hobbled though England was by her religious turmoil and "Popish Plots" that had blasted her green and pleasant land with civil war.

Director Kapur and screenwriter Michael Hirsh do a solid job of brewing up an atmosphere of malevolence and courtly turmoil, and cinematographer Remi Afarasin and costume designer Alexandra Byrne work some major magic by conjuring up the breathtaking spectacles of the young Elizabethan Court. The vibrant colors and phantasmagoric spectacles of Elizabeth's masques (particularly a clever little stage parody enacting the ravages of Elizabeth's knightly pirates against the Spanish treasure fleet) provide a fitting contrast to the pious gloom of her sister Mary's reign (Kathy Burke adds immeasurably to the film with a tiny but choice role as Bloody Mary).

"Elizabeth" is also blessed with stellar performances. Blanchett carries the movie with a prescient mix of poise, naivete, giddyness and terrible steel; her flawless diction, and Kapur's device of having a series of informal shots illustrating her practicing a speech to be given before the Lords, makes her character immediate, believable, and oddly vulnerable.

Joseph Fiennes excels as always the kind of role that suits him, that of a weak but cultivated sophisticate. Geoffrey Rush smoulders as Walsingham, the courtier who brings a little of Machiavelli to the British Isles; Chris Eccleston ("28 Days Later") turns in a nice performance as Norfolk, and serves as a finely-honed foil against Rush and the self-appointed engine of destruction for the Queen.

The movie is studded with smaller, but no less stellar, performances: Richard Attenborough avuncular as the fearful but well-intentioned Burghley; Vincent Cassel hysterical as the depraved Duc D'Anjou, James Frain spookily sinister as the Spanish ambassador Alvaro, the lovely Fanny Ardant tempting as the plotting, cruel Marie de Guise, Edward Hardwicke taking a break from Dr. Watson to play Lord Arundel, and even Sir John Gielgud as the Pope.

Kapur has created a classic with "Elizabeth", an absorbing and gorgeous film, full of palace intrigue, deception, and a decidedly impressive metamorphosis of Queen and Country. This is no lifeless period costume drama or dessicated history mounted in a cabinet, but a lush, sanguine, racingly plotted rumination on the nature of Power itself, and the often cruel and exhausting demands the Crown and Sceptre require of the one who wears and wields them.

Rating:
Summary: A weird historical fantasy
Review: A previous reviewer referred to this film as 'not quite historically accurate' which is putting it very midly indeed. There is hardly anything in this very odd film that is historically accurate. I don't wish to be ageist, but Richard Attenborough is about 40 years too old for the part of Lord Burghley, he was only about 35 when Elizabeth became Queen, and what's all this rot about her dismissing him from her service/ She never did, eh stayed with her until he died. Equally absurd is the notion that she didn't know Leicester was married, of course she did, his marriage wasn't secret. And they keep on having sex all over the place, as if there weren't spies everywhere at court watching like hawks for any signs of immorality (the Spanish Ambassador bribed her laundresses to report on the state of her sheets). The Duke of Anjou is shown visiting her as an adult suitor (he was bout 7 at the time). And as for the Duke of Norfolk, he looks like something out of Lord of the Rings, a friend of mine remarked that she kept expecting to see a lot of dwarfs dancing round him saying "shall we kill him now master" or something. Everybody acts very well, but it's all such rubbish. Why wasn't the real story of Elizabeth considered interesting enough to make a good film? She didn't exdactly have a dull life, after all.