Daniel Craig Movie:

		List Price: $19.98		Label: Universal Studios Salesrank: 32902 Released: September 18, 2007
		Our Price: $6.97
		Used Price: $6.75
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: HD DVD

Editorial Review:

One of the big Elizabethan-era films of 1998, Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth serves up a brimming goblet of religious tension, political conspiracy, sex, violence, and war. England in 1554 is in financial and religious turmoil as the ailing Queen "Bloody" Mary attempts to restore Catholicism as the national faith. She has no heir, and her greatest fear--that her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth will assume the throne after her death--is realized. Still, the late Queen Mary has her loyalists. The newly crowned Elizabeth finds herself knee-deep in dethroning schemes while also dodging assassination attempts. Her advisers (including Sir William Cecil, superbly played by Richard Attenborough) beg her to marry any one of her would-be suitors to stabilize England's empire. No matter that she already has a lover. The passionate Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes) is married, however, and shows he cannot stand up to the growing strength of the Queen. With the help of her aide Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth strikes against her enemies before they get to her first. But her rise ultimately entails rejecting love and marriage to redefine herself as the indisputable Virgin Queen.

Cate Blanchett's Oscar-nominated performance as the naive and vibrant princess who becomes the stubborn and knowing queen is both severe and sympathetic. Her ethereal, pale beauty is equal parts fire and ice, her delivery of such lines as "There will be only one mistress here and no master!" expressed with command rather than hysterics. As striking as Blanchett's performance is the film's lavish and dramatic production design. The cold, dark sets paired with the lush costuming show the golden age of England's monarchy emerging from the Middle Ages. Rich velvet brushes over the dank stones while power is achieved at any price, and with such attention to physical detail, Elizabeth fully immerses you into its compelling chronicle of pioneering feminism and revisionist history. --Shannon Gee

Elizabeth [HD DVD] Reviews:
Elizabeth
2009-12-28 - Elizabeth, the bastard daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, is a Protestant, and considered an enemy of the Catholic Queen Mary. As more Protestants start an uprising against the Catholic throne, Mary brings Elizabeth before her to be tried and sentenced for treason as a heretic. Instead, Mary is unable to condemn her half sister to death, and tells her that she is dying of a tumor and when she dies Elizabeth will become queen. At the age of 25 Elizabeth becomes queen of England and must deal with affairs, death threats, attempted murder, and plots from within her own administration to become the Virgin Queen who brought England back to prosperity and prominence.

In 1998, Cate Blanchett was an unknown having only appeared in bit parts here and there, but was more well known on the stage. After considering Nicole Kidman, and turning down Meryl Streep (one of only three roles she has ever been turned down for), Shekhar Kapur, an acclaimed Indian filmmaker making his English language debut, saw a trailer with Cate Blanchett and knew that he found the perfect Queen Elizabeth. And this was a daunting task. Queen Elizabeth is a well revered monarch, and not much is known about the early years of her reign. Piecing together what we know of Elizabeth's life and her reign, Michael Hirst crafted a screenplay that shows how Elizabeth became the queen, and woman, she would become. The question is, how well does it work.

Elizabeth is possibly the most beautiful period piece I have ever seen. The cinematography is amazing, the sets and costumes are absolutely breathtaking, and Shekhar Kapur has an eye for bringing out the most in all of it. Shekhar Kapur also brings a more worldly view of the world as well, not just looking at this as the tale of British nobility, but looking at it as a story for the world of coming of age, politics, and religion mixing with politics and the dangers there in. Hirst's characters are well crafted and lived in, which typically is a problem for most period pieces dealing with real subjects. All too often characterizations suffer in these cases because there are so many people who helped make old mold your central character, but Hirst handles these issues deftly to craft great characters and you either empathize with or despise.

The acting pedigree in this movie is stellar, and the ensemble cast of course makes the best of a great script. The real standout for me was Joseph Fiennes, currently the main character in Flashforward but also known for being in the other great period piece of 1998 Shakespeare in Love. Joseph Fiennes plays his character, Robert Dudley, with love, anger, malice, and sadness. He imbues him with such likability that, even at his worst, you feel every tick of emotion within the character, and Joseph Fiennes wrings ever bit of emotion from the character to the last drop without ever feeling as though he's going over the top. Naturally, though, when you're dealing with a cast that includes Geoffrey Rush (Pirates of the Caribbean), Christopher Eccleston (Dr. Who), Cate Blanchett (The Aviator), Daniel Craig (Casino Royale), Sir Richard Attenborough (Jurassic Park, and a phenomenal director in his own right see Ghandi), and so on saying one actor is a standout is like picking the best lawyer out of a group of Ivy League grads who all graduated at the top of their class.

The one problem that I have to say that I have with this film is that the side plot dealing with Eccleston's Duke of Norfolk and the Vatican seemed slightly undercooked. It just didn't seem as though it was given the attention it needed, and in turn the Duke of Norfolk wasn't given enough to due. He's still fleshed out, but it feels as though your made to believe that he's the sole leader in a plot but I never really completely got the feeling that he was as in control as you were made to believe. Of course, when the real focus of the film is the coming of age of Queen Elizabeth I, this is almost an afterthought, and the plot still shows you how this led to Queen Elizabeth becoming the monarch she became.

I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes period pieces, history, and fans of the actors and actresses mentioned above. Personally, I think this is the best work from most of those mentioned above, including Cate Blanchett, which is saying a lot.

4.5/5

Elizabeth
2009-11-21 - Excellent service, the product was in excellent shape and it came to my home in a very short time. .Elizabeth (Spotlight Series) Cate Blanchett, is Elizabeth to a T. Her portrayal of the Queen was excellent. Geoffrey Rush was great in his role as Elizabeths advisor. A real good movie and I would recomend it to all who like history and action, drama.

Elizabeth
2009-10-09 - An excellant film on the life of Queen Elizabeth with a stunning performance by Cate Blanchett.

good
2009-09-03 - I had to watch this movie for a history class and I must say that I really enjoyed it. All though some of the facts were not alltogether true the movie was very entertaining.

A very good film about a very great Queen
2009-08-25 - There is no question that Elizabeth I was the greatest Queen, and possibly the greatest monarch of either gender, that England ever had,and Cate Blanchett does an excellent job of bringing her vividly to life in Shekhar Kapur's film. Elizabeth assumed the throne at a very young age and ruled England for over 40 years, during which time she guided her country from poverty and turmoil to peace and unpredecented power and prosperity.

Blanchett expertly portrays Elizabeth's progress from a carefree adolescent with blooming with health and vitality, a frightened young woman expecting to be sent to the execution block at any moment by her spiteful sister Queen Mary who has been abandoned by her husband Philip of Spain and racked with pains from the cancer that is killing her, an insecure young monarch endeavoring to earn the respect of her court and her country, to a hardened woman approaching thirty, still young but no longer trusting anything but her own instincts. Am I to be made of stone, feeling nothing? she demands after she has sent a number of traitors to the headsman. And her answer to that question is to reinvent herself. She will be re-virginized, married only to England and her people, devoting her life and her love to her country and her subjects.

The film has been criticized as anti-Catholic and a good many of the villains in the movie are portrayed as Catholics trying to dethrone Elizabeth at best or kill her at worst. It is a historical fact that the Vatican tried to destabilize her reign by declaring that no Catholic in England had to obey her or her laws and referred to Elizabeth as "the heretical whore" who had no right to occupy the throne in the first place. Religion was the prime motivating force behind much of the conflict in 16th century England, with Mary Tudor burning Protestants at the stake and anti-Catholic regulations being promulgated after Mary's death. There is no real anti-Catholic bias in the movie that I could find. But the number of historical bloopers is mind-boggling, and the following are just a few of the more egregious ones:

When Elizabeth is interrogated by a group of religious inquisitors at the beginning of the film, they claim that it was Anne Boleyn's heretical Protestantism that caused her to be executed. Her religion had nothing to do with it. Henry VIII had her put out of the way on a trumped-up charge of adultery and incest because he had fallen in love with another woman.

William Cecil, portrayed as an old man in the movie, was still in his thirties at Elizabeth's accession. He was her most trusted counselor and served her faithfully for 40 years until his death. He was not put out to pasture as the film would have us believe. And Francis Walsingham was not middle-aged as portrayed in the film; he was in his mid-twenties when Elizabeth became Queen.

Lord Robert Dudley, who may or may not have been Elizabeth's lover, was a loyal friend until his death and never betrayed her in real life as he was said to have done in the film. And as a hard-line Protestant all his life, he never converted to Catholicism. The film shows Elizabeth as astounded and outraged when William Cecil breaks the news of Dudley's marriage. In real life she couldn't have been all that surprised, as she attended the wedding.

There is no evidence whatever that Walsingham was in any way involved in the death of Anne of Guise, who died only a year into Elizabeth's reign and not by poison.

And so it goes. The historical license may have made for more action and drama, but as history, "Elizabeth" falls way short of reality.

The acting, however, can't be faulted on any account. Cate Blanchett, as mentioned above, gives a knockout performance as Elizabeth, Geoffrey Rush is a compelling mixture of suavity and menace as Walsingham, Joseph Fiennes is marvelous as Robert Dudley, hopelessly in love with a woman he can never hope to have, John Gielgud and Richard Attenborough are outstanding in their respective roles as the Pope and William Cecil, and Kathy Burke is almost painful to watch as Mary Tudor, eaten up with cancer, hating and yet unable to sign the death warrant of the sister she knows will bring England back to the Protestantism she abhors and abominates. I really wish I could give this film five stars. But the appalling license taken with Elizabeth's life and reign forces me to withhold the last star and give it only four.

Judy Lind