40
Kapur and his screenwriter have little interest here in maintaining even a dollop of historical accuracy.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
An unholy mixture of the banal and the bombastic.
30
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
Overdresses and ultimately abandons what drew us to its 1998 predecessor in the first place: an intimate embrace with history.
63
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Elizabeth: The Golden Age lacks the intricate plotting that characterized its predecessor. The screenplay is more action-oriented but not as smart, and some of the dialogue is downright cheesy.
58
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Too bad Kapur's new, glittering sequel also shows up feeling prematurely old, square, and cautious. A production of exquisitely complicated wigs and expensively grand wide shots, it pauses often to admire its own beauty, leery of messing with previous success.
50
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
Despite good performances all around, particularly the ever-brilliant Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a gilded ornament, speculative and uninterested in much besides this queen's matters of heart.
42
Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer
Blanchett miraculously gives a good performance, even when saddled with lines like this one, to Clive Owen's Sir Walter Raleigh: "In another world, could you have loved me?"
50
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
Cate Blanchett can do anything, even play Bob Dylan, but she can't save this creaky sequel to her star-making 1998 biopic of Elizabeth I.
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker
Favors pageantry over substance.
40
Without the pleasure of watching Cate Blanchett continue the role that launched her to stardom, there would be little to recommend this latest of many cinematic and television accounts of the celebrated monarch's life.