Ryan McNeil
I’ve had frustrating discussions about sequels and series lately, and usually I’m the one defending the various part twos, and threes, and fours. However, there are some sequels that even leave me scratching my head. ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE is one such movie.
The original, starring Cate Blanchet in the title role was amazing. It was well written and shot, with a top-notch cast that read like a who’s who of late 90’s indie cinema. It was nominated for a boatload of Oscars, including Best Picture, and managed to lose the one it most deserved (Best Actress – sorry Julia). But to think that you can go back to the well nearly ten years later, and recapture the original luster of the project requires an optimism that even I don’t have in me.
That’s not to say that E:TGA is a bad movie, more that it’s unnecessary. To be fair, it does look a lot better, but I think that gets chalked up to more sophisticated cameras and effects. But for my money, the story wasn’t what it could have been. It’s a tale of love, war, treason, and triumph…but so was the original. While on one hand we watch Lizzie trying to deal with her affections for Sir Raleigh (Clive Owen) and his leanings towards her handmaid Elizabeth (Abbie Cornish), we also have her at odds with Mary Queen of Scots. Again. The Queen had to deal with her in the first movie, why do we have to come back to her again?
Much of the movie talks about the impending danger of an invasion by The Spanish. Matter of fact, the marketing of the movie even touches on it by showing Queen Elizabeth in full armor standing rank over her army. In a strange bait-and-switch, the payoff of that impending danger is dealt with rather quickly. I truly think that if more of the movie had been spent focusing on that, rather than the soap opera of unrequited love, it might well be one of the part twos I argue in favor of so venomently.