Elizabeth

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Summary: In response to the first (March 15, 1999) customer review:
Review: Maybe they should've just played "Greensleeves" through the whole track?

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Summary: A hero gets her justice!
Review: Finally, a movie that describes Elizabeth's younger years. As Shekhar Kapur noted on the DVD documentary, most films about Elizabeth I start where this film ends. No other film has ever explored what it took for her to rise to the powerful position of the Virgin Queen. Thanks to Kapur and Cate Blanchett (whom I've loved ever since I saw a schmaltzy drama called Paradise Road), Elizabeth is brought to life with grace and vigour. Some might say Kapur's direction is too fancy (William Goldman complained he'd never seen so many actors wasted by showing only the tops of their heads) but I think it's creative and breathes new life into period filmmaking. I payed no attention to any of the other actors in the film because Cate was all there was for me. (Joseph Fiennes is a pain in the neck and plays the most irresponsible and foolish man in the whole world).

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Summary: For those of you who have posted negative reviews...
Review: If you didn't understand this movie, maybe you aren't ready for it! This is one of the most fantastic films I have ever seen (and believe me, I have seen quite a few). Cate Blanchett so truly embodied the aura of England's longest reigning monarch. The metamorphasis from a beautiful, innocent young woman into a hardened, selfless queen was amazing! I urge all of you two starrers to watch it again and again and again until you get it!

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Summary: Depressing
Review: This film is shot in the dark, so it's hard to tell what's going on. I know interiors were dark in those days, but there was such a thing as daylight. It is also gratuitously violent.

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Summary: Better than your averge frock-flick but hardly a masterpiece
Review: I don't generally like biopics. Not for the fact that they are, more often than not, innacurate (Shakespeare's "history" plays are brutally innacurate but they're still brilliant), but for the fact that they have an irritating tendecy to idolise their subjects, who generally come out of the film pretty much sugar coated. And I don't usually like "frock-flicks" either, simply because they either tend to romanticise the period in question or they use it as a mere faded backdrop for sophorific plots of lust and intrigue, so drearily similar that I keep wondering why they haven't been patented yet.

But I did like 'Elizabeth', which is engrossing and well-made, and I liked it mostly because of the visuals and the acting. Shekar Kapur, who directed the excellent 'Bandit Queen', has created a film that I recommend simply out of its texture, saturated in reds and golds, darkness and whispers. He is not exactly Peter Greenaway, but he can understand the twin natures of colour and light.

But of course a film cannot stand up for its cinematography alone, and that's where things start to fall apart slightly. You see, Elizabeth I had a very long life, and one that was full of events, but as relevancy goes, I would think that her early years would be of extreme importance for a case-study. Her father was a paranoid tyrant who beheaded her mother and ignored his daughters, and Elizabeth spent her early life in constant danger of being murdered herself. I think that the psychological importance of those events is self-evident, but they are not mentioned once during the entire film. Also, the film is simply WAY too big in scope. I mean, it tries to pack too many characters into two hours, never leaving them time to develop per se: Blanchett's Elizabeth is the only fully-rounded character. Certain scenes are a triumph of style over substance, and of camera angles over probability (a catholic priest wandering in a royal palace? Not bloody likely).

I hesitated about giving this film four or three stars. Blanchett deserved four stars (and may I say for the record that she was ROBBED?), but what finally made up my mind were the captions used to book-end the drama. After deftly avoiding such pitfalls, Kapur plunges straight into the sugar-coat trap. As I was fleeting through the other reviews, I noticed an unnerving tendency for some people to completely idolise Elizabeth. Well, I find her admirable myself, but let's not pretend that she deserved sainthood because then like now it was a dog-eat-dog world if you wanted to survive in politics. Elizabeth was as ruthless as any other ruler of the period and she strikes me as an interesting but aggressive personality. Also, during her reign England *was* powerful, but there were deep religious divisions, political strife and economical problems so severe they led to food riots. Flay me for this, but more often than not, the heresies of today become the ortodoxies of tomorrow.

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Summary: Elizabeth is fantastic!
Review: I'm so glad there are so many other reviewers who think that "Elizabeth" is a marvelous film. And I'm glad someone pointed out that this is NOT A DOCUMENTARY. It is a story which combines both fact and fiction to create intense drama.

And Cate Blanchett's rich, unforgettable performance humanized Queen Elizabeth. You could feel Elizabeth's vulnerability and uncertainty as she learned how to become a monarch. As a woman, Elizabeth experienced loneliness, betrayal, and love. You felt the heartbreak and sacrifice made by Elizabeth in Cate's astounding performance. This movie is a keeper!

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Summary: An amazing FICTIONAL tale about Queen Elizabeth
Review: This is an beautifly told and designed story. I say story because that is what it is. A story. If it had been a documentary, as other reviewers seem to base it's merits on history books, then it would have problems but since it is not a documentary then it is ridiculus to treat it so. This is a riviting movie. I have to stop myself from renting it everytime I go to the store and I can't wait until I can afford to buy it. I would recomend this movie to anyone who enjoys a well produced movie.

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Summary: Absolutely brilliant!
Review: I have been waiting for this video to go on sale for AGES!!! Now I can finally buy it. It is a magnificent film that all epic lovers should see. The acting is superb, the music is captivating, and the cinematography is just "wow"... the movie just leaves you speechless. Cate Blanchett played her role so convincing and with so much commanding power. Talk about girl power!

Rating:
Summary: Simply Great
Review: Simply Grea

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I loved this movie. It's certainly inaccurate in parts but always entertaining. More like a renaissance Godfather than a period piece.

Geoffrey Rush was so menacing as Walsingham and Christopher Eccleston was very good too but the star is Cate Blanchett. She is brilliant in it, absolutely brilliant. She takes Elizabeth from persecuted princess to all-powerful monarch and is utterly believable. Her performance is of such a higher quality than Gwyneth Paltrow's in Shakespeare in Love that you wonder if Oscar voters bothered to watch Elizabeth at all.