Nominated for Best Actress (Cate Blanchette) and Best Costumes.I love a good historical drama. Unfortunately, this was was just not that good. The filmmakers got it right with everything they could crib from the first Elizabeth 8 years ago. The costumes, the set decoration, the dialogue, and Cate Blanchette. All spectacular. But the new stuff felt like a different cheaper film entirely. All the scenes on ships look like soundstages and green screen. After the Pirates films and Master and Commander, the sea battle and defeat of the famed Spanish Armada was embarrassingly bad. Spanish King Philip is the big bad meglomaniacal villain, but is hardly fearsome or kingly, he mainly walks around looking at candles and calling Elizabeth a bastard. And no one should be able to give a rousing speech on horseback to the troops ever again. This scene has become the epitome of cliche. The film is at it's best during the scenes of Blanchette, Clive Owen (as explorer Sir Walter Raleigh) and Abbie Cornish (as Elizabeth's handmaiden Bess), all of whom give great performances. This makes the first half of the film very strong, but it slows during the second act's assassination plot, and really becomes tedious during the Spanish Invasion of the third act. Blanchette won't win Best Actress for a role she didn't win for in 1999 in a better film. But Best Costumes should be a lock.
The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: C
Cate Blanchette won Best Supporting Actress in 2004 for The Aviator and was nominated for Elizabeth (1999), Notes on a Scandal (2006) and this year for I'm Not There.
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