and not surprising. because Helen Mirren has the science and art and force to be inn and out of her characters in a magnificent manner. because nothing could change the powerful impression about her performance. a performance who, in subtle way, transforms the character in a masterpiece. Elizabeth I is a good example. first because, after books and movies, theories and speculations, she is a profound different Queen. rigid and vulnerable, old and energetic, seductive and cruel. the solitude of the Queen becomes not only realistic but an ice show itself. because its roots and ways and maps are so clear. because the story has a special dose of realism. because she is Elizabeth and any comparison with other interpreter becomes strange.

It's 1579 London. After 20 years on the throne, Elizabeth I (Helen Mirren) still refuses to marry. The men of the court plot to get her married for political advantage. She and the Earl of Leicester (Jeremy Irons) have feelings for each other. They await the Spanish Armada with his stepson Earl of Essex (Hugh Dancy). After Leicester's death, Elizabeth takes Essex as her new lover. Essex has a rival in the Privy Council in Robert Cecil (Toby Jones).Helen Mirren is beyond masterful. The great thing is how human the queen is in this version. This is filled with great actors. It's a smaller scale TV miniseries. The first part is interesting that ends with the Spanish Armada. The second part is even better. It's darker and more fascinating. This is a much performed character but Mirren still brings it.

Once again the strange star rating system recorded by IMDb fools yours truly. How come this gets 8 stars, when Blanchett and Kapur get only 7.5 for their first offering? I was persuaded to buy this DVD because of the 8 stars, and now feel deceived. Helen Mirren is a very good, and sometimes a great actress. She can be absolutely riveting, and Irons isn't exactly bad. So it's not their faults. It must be the writing and directing that made me yawn. It's the direct lack of direction, in point of fact. The narrative ambles amiably along, pointlessly, now and then intercut with some gratuitous torture, bungled executions, disembowellings etc, which seem to be inserted merely in order to jolt the audience out of their danger of dozing off. There's no overall vision, no palpable theme to interest, engage and stimulate the viewer. Instead his mind wanders: he wonders why the whole presentation looks so cheap, almost amateurish. Lack of genuine ideas, general tiredness.

There's treasure in the story of Elizabeth. Its part of our deep structure, if for no other reason than she was there when the language and the US was born. She had Harriot, Bacon, Raleigh, Shakespeare. She preserved the world from Christian religious extremism. The banking laws were established during this time that allowed a tiny island to become a world power. This is when the great repression of Ireland began.There are few people so well suited for cinematic drama. If Shakespeare were writing today, she would be a first choice. I suppose that's why so many wannabees take her as the matter for their screenplays. So when you come to these, its a business of evaluating how badly they missed the target — how bad an imitation do Shakespeare we get.This one is pretty bad. Oh, its glorious. It has the common conflation of fate, love and politics that seems to be trendy these days.It has fantastic costumes, and colorful but a bit clumsy attempts at Elizabethan backgrounds. These aren't quite accurate and seem excessively stagy, as do the castle interiors. It has a colorful actress shifting emotions and giving us the message: love, passion infuses all.But it isn't true. She was just a selfish woman with the power to command and reward sexual favors. Love of the kind we celebrate in film had nothing to do with it. But that raises the question about why we like this portrayal, and the excellence with which is rolled out. I suppose each of us have to answer that for ourselves — and I suppose most of us will conclude that it is because passion, love, sex in "ordinary life" (which politics usually represents in these projects) is what we desire with a similar passion.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.