And so Oscar season begins in earnest. Cate Blanchett is returning to the role that made her a star and earned her first Academy Award nomination -- Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" is the kind of movie you don't see in theatres until Oscar ballots are about to be printed; a big budget period piece with big stars and laced with treachery and romance.
It's kind of like "Pirates of the Caribbean" but with a brain but nowhere near the blockbuster potential. It will, however, grab more Oscars attention than Johnny and company.
Dust off the history books, we're going back to Europe in 1585. When the story rejoins Elizabeth, she is facing attack from Spanish King Philip II (Jordi Molla) who is hellbent on bringing Catholicism back to England.
Elizabeth must protect her country, but there is a distracting chink in her armour -- a crush on the hunky poet-warrior Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen).
Her sacred vow to her country precludes giving herself to anyone but royalty, so, in an effort to keep Raleigh close, she plays matchmaker, setting him up with her nearest and dearest lady-in-waiting Bess (Abbie Cornish).
At her side throughout all this is trusted advisor Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush reprising his role from the first La Liz movie).
As pressures mount abroad, Walsingham helms the battle plans, but must also keep on eye on unrest at home. Using a spy system that would make the CIA green with envy, he unearths an assassination plot, but unwittingly sets England up for devastation.
First the good stuff. Of late, Blanchett seems to have the popular vote as "greatest living film actress," supplanting Meryl Streep, and "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" won't tarnish that platitude one bit.
She delivers a strong-willed performance that centres the movie, adding both humanity and vulnerability to a character often seen as stiff and steely.
Her pale skin -- she's the most pallid performer this side of Casper the Friendly Ghost -- is almost translucent, all the better to see the inner workings of Elizabeth, a complicated woman who ran a country, but had trouble running her life.
The Academy likes giving awards to actors playing real people, and just last year Helen Mirren took home a statue for playing a Queen, so look for Blanchett at Oscar time.
Other performances impress -- Rush is suitable stately, although underused, Owen exudes his usual sex appeal and seems to be channelling Errol Flynn. Abbie Cornish (soon to appear in "Stop Loss" opposite Ryan Phillippe) as Elizabeth's BFF Bess provides a welcome addition of girl power to the proceedings.
Costume and set design are both exemplary, and whoever created Blanchett's elaborate wigs deserves a prize simply for their work with a curling iron.
Now, the bad. The 1998 "Elizabeth I" was tightly plotted and smart, two things the new film are not. Unfortunately, "The Golden Age" throws most of the history out the window and allows plotlines seemingly borrowed from "The Bold and the Beautiful" to sneak in.
Director Shekhar Kapur may have been trying make an accessible film about an historical figure, but the lovey-dovey stuff feels like we're watching an episode of "The Hills: The Medieval Years."
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" is a deeply flawed movie with good performances, marred by bad CGI, a bombastic musical score and a juvenile story that feels like it should star characters named Biffy and Susie, not Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth.
Two and a half stars out of five
