Plot
A mature Queen Elizabeth endures multiple crises late in her reign including court intrigues, an assassination plot, the Spanish Armada, and romantic disappointments.

Release Year: 2007

Rating: 6.8/10 (29,667 voted)

Critic's Score: 45/100

Director: Shekhar Kapur

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush

Storyline
Two faiths, two empires, two rulers - colliding in 1588. Papist Spain wants to bring down the heretic Elizabeth. Philip is building an armada but needs a rationale to attack. With covert intrigue, Spain sets a trap for the Queen and her principal secretary, Walsingham, using as a pawn Elizabeth's cousin Mary Stuart, who's under house arrest in the North. The trap springs, and the armada sets sail, to rendezvous with French ground forces and to attack. During these months, the Virgin Queen falls in love with Walter Raleigh, keeping him close to court and away from the sea and America. Is treachery or heroism at his heart? Does loneliness await her passionate majesty?

Writers: William Nicholson, Michael Hirst

Cast:
Jordi Mollà - King Philip ll of Spain
Aimee King - Infanta
Cate Blanchett - Queen Elizabeth I
Laurence Fox - Sir Christopher Hatton
John Shrapnel - Lord Howard
Geoffrey Rush - Sir Francis Walsingham
Susan Lynch - Annette
Elise McCave - Laundry Woman
Samantha Morton - Mary Stuart
Abbie Cornish - Bess Throckmorton
Penelope McGhie - Margaret
Rhys Ifans - Robert Reston
Eddie Redmayne - Thomas Babington
Stuart McLoughlin - Savage
Clive Owen - Sir Walter Raleigh

Taglines: Blacnhett returns in the role for which she received an OSCAR nomination

Official Website: Official site | Studio Canal [France] |

Release Date: 12 October 2007

Filming Locations: Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire, England, UK

Box Office Details

Budget: $55,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $6,153,075 (USA) (14 October 2007) (2001 Screens)

Gross: $16,264,475 (USA) (24 November 2007)

Runtime: 114 min

Trivia:
El Escorial (the King of Spain's palace) is really London's Westminster Cathedral. Since it's a functioning church, the production team had to wait until the last evening confession was done, strip the interior of everything recognizably modern, shoot every scene during the night, then put everything back in place by morning mass.

Goofs:
Factual errors: English Admiral Lord Howard said he was losing ships, and was out gunned by the Spanish. However, it was the English ships who out gunned the Spanish, and no ships were lost to either side.

Quotes:
Queen Elizabeth I: Are you here to tell me I must murder a Queen?
Sir Walter Raleigh: I would never presume to tell my Queen what to do. Only you know where your duty lies.
Queen Elizabeth I: Was it my father's duty to murder my mother? She was a Queen, for a time. Oh, I would be loath to die such so bloody a death.
Sir Walter Raleigh: Since when were you so afraid?
Queen Elizabeth I: I'm always afraid.
Sir Walter Raleigh: Kill a Queen and all Queens are mortal. We mortals have many weaknesses: we feel too much, hurt too much, all too soon we die, but we do have the chance of love.
Queen Elizabeth I: Do we? I have given England my life. Must she also have my soul?

Elizabeth: Die Hard With a Vengeance

Rating: 3/10

This rates as high as it does for me because of the cinematography. It is dazzling and Blanchett can't be denied, but "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" is like a chick-flick with explosions plus costumes, super hair, and loud, intrusive music. The result is faux epic.

My wife summed it up well as we left the theater: "I feel like I've just flipped through a coffee table picture book for two hours and somebody turned up the stereo." History wrote this plot but Nicholson and Hirst thought they could do better. They couldn't, or certainly didn't. Freshmen composition classes come up with better stuff. Trite, forced, predictable. Did they even run this by an expert in English history? You gotta wonder. The script is oozing with 21st century mores and clichés. It made me think (during the movie, mind you) of the way Dutch painters depicted Homer and Aristotle in the garb of 17th century Holland. Are we that dumb? Sir Walter Raleigh is a caricature and Sir Francis Drake, never properly introduced, was a throwaway. Geoffrey Rush is wasted as Walsingham. Come to think of it, nearly everybody is wasted. Every single character is underdeveloped, with the possible exception of the title character—possible exception.

"Golden Age" set the target high and then turned and fired in the opposite direction. Realizing the script had missed, Director tried to make up for it with window dressing. Substance would have served this queen better. With the colon in the title, I almost expected to see Bruce Willis saving the day.

You can see why "Golden Age" came out in October because it's not going to compete for Oscars in categories that anybody cares about. With all the budget they had for this movie, you'd Universal could have found better writers.

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