Elizabeth: The Golden Age
“Elizabeth: The Golden Age” lacks the vitality of Cate Blanchett’s first outing as the Virgin Queen, 1998’s “Elizabeth.” That movie dramatized the firebrand young monarch’s realization that to be an effective ruler, she must give up any hope of personal or romantic fulfillment. It was stirring and heartbreaking. The sequel fast-forwards ahead to 1585, cherry-picking crises and intrigue from Elizabeth’s later reign: the ambitions of Mary, Queen of Scots to usurp the throne, the arrival of Sir Walter Raleigh at court and the attack of the Spanish Armada. Despite Blanchett’s dynamic interpretation of the queen’s roiling emotions, the story never flexes any muscle. Director Shekhar Kapur remains capable of glorious imagery, but at crucial moments, he abandons the action to bathe the queen in ethereal light.
Milquetoast drama notwithstanding, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” may have the power to inflame. That’s because it argues that Catholics were the terrorist zealots of their day. I can only guess that Kapur, a native of Pakistan, feels that Muslims have gotten a raw deal in movies and turnabout is fair play. Protestants don’t entirely escape criticism – Elizabeth’s closest adviser, Sir Francis Walsingham, becomes a Cheneyesque torturer-in-chief. But it’s a vast oversimplification to depict all Catholics as benighted simpletons and the daughter of Henry the Eighth as the defender of tolerance and enlightenment. “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” wrongly declares England the winner of a holy war. Kapur should know such wars are never won.
LISTEN: Elizabeth: The Golden Age