GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Ken Ku-Chih I am rating this whilst I'm watching it as I just have to tell someone... crikey this is bloody awful!! The only authentic thing about it is Tom Hardy's 16th century teeth. They've managed to take what was one of history's great stories add a pretty impressive cast and then through a masterful mix of dumbing down, historical inaccuracies, cringe worthy attempts to make it "current" and what can only be described as generally 'hammy' execution throughout made this an absolute pig of a show to watch.It's like a history of Elizabeth I for the Simon Cowell generation. Yes, it's THAT bad.Now, where's that remote...

pdwebbsite Priming up to teach Renaissance history I've looked into just about every Elizabeth I movie around--from Bette Davis to Helen Mirren. I endured the dry Glenda Jackson series for its historical perspective, enjoyed the brief comedic overacting of Dame Dench in Shakespeare in Love, totally skipped Cate Blanchett's version due to the reviews openly praising this Hollywood take on known history.As to this newer version, I couldn't bear to finish it, and I usually don't quit movies. The editing seemed to delight in snatches, rendering this as apatched together series of Elizabeth commercials. The lighting was dark, which didn't help. Robert Dudley was portrayed as being way too young. He should have been reserved for the Earl of Essex part. There were other aspects I didn't care for, but the Robert Dudley part needed to be more nailed down seeing how important he was to Elizabeth's reign.Helen Mirren's version to me presents the most personable, the one that really brings out the personage of the queen. The politics in that version were more defined as well. I don't understand why the BBC thought to try and trot out another version of Elizabeth I when so many exist already. Aren't there any other monarchs worth looking into?

tedg The charter of masterpiece theater is simple: provide the viewer with a richer experience than usual. Intelligent cinema isn't part of this precis, nor is compelling drama (whatever that means), and in cases like this, even effective history.That's still okay with me in theory, because a key thing I look for is getting lost in the shape of the thing. The problem with Masterpiece is that lushness to them means good enough in all categories except sets and costumes. Nothing else is supposed to exceed the norm, apparently in a deliberate strategy to not overwhelm the visuals. This isn't Zeffireli's notion that you create a lush place and then occupy it with the camera, moving and discovering.No, this is simply a buffet table of color and texture and we are suppose to help ourselves. The "story" isn't integrated in, its just an excuse: royalty, richness, assumed importance. So I have to warn most of my readers off of this; its offensive in a way, mere artifice, not a real film.As history, it fails down a bit too. Too bad, because this is the period when English was born and became the worlds largest (in terms of words) and most flexible language. It was in large part a deliberate plan by Elizabeth (and apparently Burleigh). And it was the era where the Catholic Church, surely an evil institution then, had its back broken by the notion of enlightenment — the very idea of knowledge.And it was when the decision was made (mixed with wealthseeking) to colonize the New World with the new notion of discovering the "magic" therein, which happened to be a cosmos not centered on the Jesus of church dogma. So there's lots in this period to be mined. John Dee appears in only one scene, Harriot not at all. You have to make the story simple it seems, so we have essentially a love story, two actually, the second being someone credibly suspected as her son.Seeing things like this help you understand just why you come to films. If all you need is color, this might satisfy. Otherwise, you'll find it alarmingly protestant.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

mama-sylvia The authors disagree with most conventional histories of Elizabeth in small but significant elements. The most important was their portrayal of Amy Dudley's death as a suicide, since the cloud her death left over Robert Dudley affected his relationship with Elizabeth for the rest of his life. They portray Lettice Devereaux as a scheming vixen, Mary of Scotland as being framed for conspiracy against Elizabeth, the Earl of Essex as a manic-depressive, and portray Elizabeth as seriously intending marriage when most evidence shows she was shrewdly playing suitors against each other to benefit England. On the other hand, many of the intriguing and baffling elements of her reign are accurately presented, including her intelligence, her scheming to survive her sister Bloody Mary's reign, her vanity, her tendency to blind partiality towards her favorites, and the astonishingly poor military ability of those favorites. Rather engaging story and will hold the interest of those not familiar with Tudor England, but seriously disappointing to those of us who think the story supported by historical documentation is enthralling enough.