Review – Elizabeth: The Golden Age

I guess if they’d called it Elizabeth 2 there might have been some confusion about exactly which queen the movie was about. Nonetheless, this is very much a sequel to the Oscar nominee from a few years back. And it suffers from many of the same flaws as its predecessor. Shekhar Kapur didn’t suddenly sprout talent between the first round and this one. And once again the more interesting elements of history give way to awkward romance and petty intrigue. To be fair, I can’t imagine exactly how a film-maker would capture some of the more interesting elements of this particular period. For example, the key importance of Spanish history in this era is the collapse of the country’s economy and the emergence of modern economic theory in its wake. But of course that’s nowhere near as cinematic as Papist plotting against the Protestant regime of our heroine. Cate Blanchett turns in another good performance, but otherwise the costumes are the star of the show. In other words, second verse same as ye first. Mildly amusing