Cinema Hype

Who knew that a movie about the defeat of the Spanish Armada would make it to the big screen? Like, with famous actors and a big budget, and everything? Elizabeth: The Golden Age picks up some time after the first Blanchett Elizabeth I movie; Elizabeth has assumed her persona as the Virgin Queen, and although she’s dealing with the ultimate work/life balance issue, the real villains in this movie comes from those radical religious activists/terrorists, the Catholics–Holy War on the Continent, domestic unrest about the role of Catholicism, and a conniving Mary Stuart up north threaten to eat up not only Elizabeth herself, but all of England.

This movie could have turned out badly, or worse, boring. The script isn’t a disaster, but it’s nothing spectacular, either–think “big-budget political/military drama” instead of “character study and psychological vignette.” Director Shekhar Kapur comes up with some striking shots–including a beautiful, backlit underwater sequence during the battle climax–but is obsessed with obliqueness and barriers; everything is off-center, through a screen of some kind, or both. The elaborateness is tiring after awhile.

Thankfully, Elizabeth: The Golden Age (which, by the way, is an appallingly awkward title) made it past the page and the storyboard–it leaps to life and ends up being pretty engaging, thanks to a cast that pulls its weight dramatically and lends the all-important air of personality to the goings-on onscreen. Cate Blanchett couldn’t be more wonderful; she’s so consistent anyway, but she really does have the knack of both Elizabeth The Ruler and Elizabeth The Woman, in equal measure. In an emergency, her voice alone could have shown up and played the role and we might have been happy–she does, after all, get to give the requisite Rousing Battle Speech, which is refreshing in a female role–but the whole Blanchett is even better. Clive Owen, another reliable source of good performances, plays Elizabeth’s buddy/would-be lover Sir Walter Raleigh, whom we’ve all read about in high school history and promptly forgotten (Or was that just me?). He’s essentially a pirate, though a nice pirate, and it’s a great role for him–a chance to be something a little friendlier and a little more personal than the roles he often plays. Plus, he’s just so amazingly good-looking up on that big screen. It’s a little disarming.

Aside from good performances by Blanchett, Owen, and their supporting cast–Geoffrey Rush and Samantha Morton, among others–the reason to see this movie is the costuming and production design. Blanchett wears a series of enormous, elaborate, period-appropriate gowns and hair pieces that are themselves practically a character (not unlike how she often dresses in real life?), remarkable both in their presence and in several scenes where they’re absent. If you like clothes, weird, beautiful, or otherwise, the gawk factor is pretty high here, and in a historical drama, that’s a good thing.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age probably isn’t the Oscar fodder it was hoping to be–except in the costuming and art categories–but it’s a pretty, entertaining, and well-made movie. Anybody who likes history, England, or Clive Owen being a friendly pirate should leave the theater happy, and who can’t get behind at least one of those things?

Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush