curiousa2z
Be patient till the last.
DON'T WASTE YER TIME READING THIS IF YOU DON'T LIKE SITTING THROUGH HISTORICAL DRAMAS.
'K.
erm, I liked it, I really did, on the whole, and not to damn with faint praise, if you enjoy sumptuous costumes, "historical drama", and Cate Blanchett in her original role as Elizabeth I, you will too. She's amazing.
Just the odd bitching points:
If you know any of the history of the period, you may find yourself, as I did, tsking at errors that really didn't seem to- how can I say this diplomatically? -
add to the "artistic flow" (or whatever their excuse for bad research is).
Mary Queen of Scot's beheading was a grisly botched affair in RL, but in the film it was relayed almost as a religious experience, the camera zooming in on Samantha Morton's translucent white skin against her red dress, the Catholic symbol of a martyr.
Funny, cos there's lots of gory, graphic brutality when Catholics are being tortured by Walsingham's minions....
Hunky! Clive Owen was well-served playing the cheeky and dashing Walter Raleigh, even though the film makers seemed to have juxtaposed him at times with Sir Francis Drake - he's depicted on board a ship fighting the Spanish Armada, which never happened. Cate Blanchett does a great hissy fit scene when she learns of his secret marriage to Bess Throckmorton, her Lady-in-Waiting.
The incredibly talented Geoffrey Rush also reprised his role as the courtier who's got Elizabeth's back, the counter-plotting Sir Francis Walsingham, and ,
while properly older and more fatigued by the intrigue in this chronologically later stage of her reign, I liked his character better in the first part where he was at the height of his ruthless conniving and plotting powers! He dies at the end of the film, so if they DO go ahead with a third part, it'll be greatly diminished without him, IMHO.
Cheers.
'K.
erm, I liked it, I really did, on the whole, and not to damn with faint praise, if you enjoy sumptuous costumes, "historical drama", and Cate Blanchett in her original role as Elizabeth I, you will too. She's amazing.
Just the odd bitching points:
If you know any of the history of the period, you may find yourself, as I did, tsking at errors that really didn't seem to- how can I say this diplomatically? -
add to the "artistic flow" (or whatever their excuse for bad research is).
Mary Queen of Scot's beheading was a grisly botched affair in RL, but in the film it was relayed almost as a religious experience, the camera zooming in on Samantha Morton's translucent white skin against her red dress, the Catholic symbol of a martyr.
Funny, cos there's lots of gory, graphic brutality when Catholics are being tortured by Walsingham's minions....
Hunky! Clive Owen was well-served playing the cheeky and dashing Walter Raleigh, even though the film makers seemed to have juxtaposed him at times with Sir Francis Drake - he's depicted on board a ship fighting the Spanish Armada, which never happened. Cate Blanchett does a great hissy fit scene when she learns of his secret marriage to Bess Throckmorton, her Lady-in-Waiting.
The incredibly talented Geoffrey Rush also reprised his role as the courtier who's got Elizabeth's back, the counter-plotting Sir Francis Walsingham, and ,
while properly older and more fatigued by the intrigue in this chronologically later stage of her reign, I liked his character better in the first part where he was at the height of his ruthless conniving and plotting powers! He dies at the end of the film, so if they DO go ahead with a third part, it'll be greatly diminished without him, IMHO.
Cheers.
