Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Elizabeth I (Cate Blanchett) flirts with dashing Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) while Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) works to keep the English throne secure against King Philip of Spain (Jordi Mollà). This sequel to 1998’s Elizabeth, written by William Nicholson and Michael Hirst and directed by Shekhar Kapur, shares the faults and virtues of its predecessor. The chief fault is, once again, that the script takes liberties with history without offering a persuasive drama to compensate. The chief virtue is Cate Blanchett; excellent in the first film, she towers here, matched by Rush in his (too few) scenes, and by Owen, who gives Raleigh a swashbuckling sexiness that the real Raleigh could only have envied. The production is sumptuous, with a rousing climactic battle against the Spanish Armada.