Only in Hollywood could a sequel to a historical epic happen, but almost ten years later, Queen Elizabeth returns to the screen in a vastly inferior sequel, this time bringing Clive Owen to her majesty's service as Sir Walter Raleigh.
Terribly written and paced, and not to mention historically inaccurate, the film seems to take forever to get from one scene to the next, yet seems to leap through history in record pace.
For a film about one of the most famous romances of all time, it completely lacks any chemistry between Raleigh and Liz. There's no flirtation, and even worse, no wit. The film takes itself as seriously as a heart attack.
And for a film about one of the most exciting historical attacks (the Spanish Armada) they fly through that in record time and suck any excitement out of it. Terribly edited and with a loud and bombastic score, the sequence is completely uninteresting. The visual effects are completely out of place and draw attention to themselves. The whole movie is wall-to-wall talky, with loud music and painfully loud sound effects (when they finally happen).
Save your money.
4 comments:
David, I've been waiting to see if you'd review "The War" by Ken Burns.
Thanks for this one, though. The movie looked stupid and now I am convinced.
Other than the JAZZ series, which I liked because of the subject, I'm not a big Ken Burns fan. (And even that had its shortcomings; not enough interviews of artists who were still alive at that point, and way too much file footage.)
I'll probably watch some of WAR at some point though.
Really? What's wrong with Ken Burns?
There were some (wide) gaps in some of the stuff, but overall I thought it was interesting.
The LA Times review of Elizabeth: The Golden Age was hilarious.
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