The ascension to the throne of England of Queen Elizabeth I and the aftermath. Shows the against-the-odds struggles she had to endure to obtain the throne and her almost-as-difficult defence of it.Superb. Reasonably accurate, historically, and very interesting. Could easily have ended as a dry docudrama but director Shekhar Kapur ensures the film is engaging, intriguing and edifying. Allied with this is a superb performance from Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth, a performance that earned her her first Oscar nomination. Throw in some fantastic sets and costumes and this is a lavish, entertaining and edifying drama.

The performance in this movie is really the big reason to watch it because she does a great job portraying a younger Queen Elizabeth. I was fascinated by that if not by the story going on around her, or other characters involved in her life. This performance was well deserving of the Academy Award for Best Actress in that year but the movie itself was nothing to write home about, aside from that phenomenal acting job. Just a basic historical drama.That said there's nothing wrong with it and I would recommend watching it. It's just not the kind of movie where all the pieces are great and add up to an "epic" film. It's all well done and the acting is fine, it's just that the titular performance makes this movie rise up above what it would have been without her, which would have been just another average historical drama.

It's 1554 England. Henry VIII is dead. The Catholic Queen Mary is burning Protestants. Her half-sister Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) is a threat to her crown and is imprisoned. Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston) is the heavy-handed henchman desperate to get the dying Queen to sign Elizabeth's death warrant. Elizabeth is in love with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Joseph Fiennes). After gaining the throne, she faces challenges from Norfolk, Mary Queen of the Scots and others from outside the country. Her main counsel William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (Richard Attenborough) urges her to marry well to protect the throne. Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) returns from exile to be her adviser. After a defeat to Mary of Guise, she must consider Mary's wild nephew Duc d'Anjou (Vincent Cassel). This is more than a costume drama. Director Shekhar Kapur brings an urgency to the proceedings. The deadly politics is more thrilling than a massive battle. Cate Blanchett is beyond brilliant. It's her first breakout role. She fits the role perfectly as a princess working her way to becoming a great queen.

I'm usually discreet when giving bad reviews for a film, because in front of a work of joint collaboration by many professionals I should learn to understand and appreciate. But this one, really? Frankly I can hardly think of any film that's worse than this, and I've even watched Movie 43. After the beginning of the film my mind already began to drift: as an empress well celebrated as "the Virgin Queen", why would a film dedicate as much as 30 minutes on her love life? Surely she had quite some suitors, but that's not what made people interested in her. The whole Robert Dudley line is completely inconsistent and mostly unnecessary. Am I suppose to buy the theory that when someone is loved by the Queen, he's risking himself being torn apart inside and forced by his shredded heart to plot her assassination, especially when just 5 minutes ago on the screen he tried to marry her to the King of Spain? This being my first Joseph Finnes film, I might never be able to like him anymore, thank you very much. Besides, judging by what I learned from this film, all Elizabeth can do is to dance, to lie back laughing like drunk, and rely on Walsingham for everything, and her hair seems to contain some active components of onion. She lacked the resolution for a Queen, and the history of England would hardly have changed without her. And that's far from the truth. The details are no more well-organized than the plot. 1. When Monsieur de Foix delivered the marriage proposal to the Queen for the second time and she said she would meed the Duke of Anjou in person, Dudley stormed away angrily, and the Queen went off to chase him immediately. Is that at all appropriate? Will a Queen of England be chasing the first Earl of Leicester during a conversation with the Ambassador of France? If that's the English way, I accept it with deepest respect. 2. The speech by the Queen in the church debate might be the worst speech ever displayed on screen. You can't just introduce a solemn background music and say the speech is convincing (which really happened in the film, and I'm offended). 3. The Daniel Craig part killed me a bit inside. How on earth would the director think that will fit in the film? 4. If the film was overall better in quality, the character of the Duke of Anjou might be fun/funny. But in crappy film like this it just sinks it deeper. 5. The intelligence department of the Elizabethan government seems to be desperately in need of hands, because Walsingham had to act as counselor, muscle, detective and assassin all by himself. I would have thought that you don't have to grope on the wall for a secret door when you are a Sir. 6. Is the Duke of Norfolk being killed right after sex supposed to be artistic? Besides, as an unessential role the Countess of Norfolk got too much screen time. Is she a niece of the director or something? If I were to watch the film again I would be able to find more weird stuff like this, but I always try to avoid such traumatic experience. I'm fairly disappointed that actors as brilliant as Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush themselves would appear in such low-quality film. I think Cate Blanchett(or Naomi Watts perhaps?) said in an interview that one has to be lucky to get good roles, but that's hardly any consolation.