Recap: It is soon Christmas and Henry II decides to hold court at Chinon. There he intends to enforce his wish to crown his youngest son John as his heir and to make John marry Alais, a French princess and Henry's lover. Unfortunately, he is not the only one with interests in the succession. Both Richard and Geoffrey, John's elder brothers, want to be king. And the queen Eleonor, imprisoned by Henry since hers (and Richards and Geoffreys last uprising) has her own intentions. And then there is the young French king Philip that intends to enforce Henry's deal with Philip's father Louis that Alais should marry Richard. The game is set and there are too many players. The only thing to be sure about is that everyone looks out for themselves.Comments: Set in the middle ages you almost think that they will solve every quarrel with swords, but this movie has almost none of it. Instead it his an entrenched battle of the wits with too many combatants so that no one never can be sure of who's trench they're in. Alliances are made and broken on a whim and everyone evolves around one thing. The throne. There are two main combatants, Henry and Eleonor, but the other has schemes of their own.That makes for an interesting story. Everything is in motion. So even if it is long (originally a two piece series) it is never dull.With no action to speak of, and the intrigue being all in words it is important that the characters is believable and all the pressure is on the actors. And they come through with flying colors. Both Stewart and Close are solid veterans, but they get strong support from all the others. No character, except for one, and that is the major flaw of the movie, is shallow or simple. All characters are deep, complex. There are secrets and hidden motives that evolve and surface during the movie. It is only John, Henry's favorite, that doesn't come through. If that is the directors intention or not I can't say but it is the weak point of the movie. Because John is too dumb and unfit to be king in almost any way conceivable. How he can be the intended heir is a conundrum. However, it is not only rational reasoning that command the players here, too much of it is emotions. Ant that, is another strength of the movie, because it builds to the unpredictability.Well, I could go on, but the comment soon would be as long as the movie. In short, this was a nice surprise. Highly recommended for those that appreciate a battle in words and don't need explosions in every movie.7/10

Remakes of successful films are notoriously difficult. It took courage to challenge the Peter O'Toole, Katherine Hepburn film. It also took talent. Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close have that in abundance. The original is a classic, no doubt, but Stewart and Close made Henry II and Eleanor very real. In a larger sense, it's too easy to see distant history and the people who lived it as characters in a play, but this film made it clear that the people who lived in those distant time were like us; they dreamed, schemed, hoped, planned, laughed, hurt, made stupid decisions and wept. Henry and Eleanor might have had larger forces working on them than most of us do, but they were just people. Stewart and Close made them real. The Supporting cast was superb. I especially appreciated the portrayal of Richard. Our modern view of that strange tormented man and terrible king was well rendered by Andrew Howard. I would recommend this film over the original.

It's a pity that this was made AFTER the film, rather than before it. As a television production of a stage play it holds up reasonably well. As a remake of a classic - and not really very old - film, it constitutes a serious disappointment.I do not automatically hate remakes. The classic Bela Lugosi Dracula was a remake. So was Charlton Hestion's Ben Hur. The remake of Ocean's Eleven is better than the original, because the stars of the original were goofing off. However, a remake should offer something new over the original. Sound. Color. Special Effects. A great star who has a new interpretation of the old role. Ideally, a remake should have more than one of these things, and - sadly - this one doesn't.Patrick Stewart does have a new take on Henry ... at least a little. His Henry is less compulsive, more comfortable, less driven. Had Glen Close shifted her Elanor to match the results might have been interesting. Unfortunately Ms. Close gives the impression that she has been watching the original for some months, nonstop. She not so much plays Elanor of Aquitane as she plays Katherine Hepburn playing Elanor. One of the other reviews here remarked that at times you could imagine that Elanor's lines were being spoken by Ms. Hepburn, and that's true but it isn't a plus. Ms. Close delivers her lines very much as Ms. Hepburn did, and if Mr. Stewart had played Henry the way Mr. O'Toole did it might have worked. Since Stewart is not playing Henry in the same way that O'Toole did, the result is somewhat jarring at times.As for the rest; the young man playing Phillip cannot begin to match the young Timothy Dalton, nor the remake's Richard come close to Hopkins's interpretation. John is a mess, but John is written as a mess in the play, so it is hard to say who to blame. Lastly, Geoffrey lacks the sardonic power of the original. It's too bad.

The craft of acting is often unseen to the casual observer. I say this because I find it hard to believe that any one would have anything bad to saw about the remarkable performances of Glen Close and Patrick Stewart. I walked away from watching this film thinking that a special Emmy should have been created for Glen. Riveting, powerful, nuanced, Close's performance astounded, showing depth in the character, and building up to the emotional explosion at the end of the film. I still have chills. And for someone to say there was no chemistry between her and Patrick I just have to say- huh? What were you looking for? The way they collided in the scene toward the end of the film revealed how much they LOVED one another...not how much they hated one another. Those angry sparks in the air had their birth in their status as soul mates.As for comparisons to Kate Hepburn? Come on now...Kate was a movie star, not an actor, and has no where near the range of Close.See this film.