Cate Blanchett, or a bloodless marmoreal likeness of her, resumes her role from the nine-years-earlier Elizabeth, under the same director, Shekhar Kapur, for a collection of the Virgin Queen's greatest hits: Mary, Queen of Scots; Sir Walter Raleigh; and, in a madly cross-cutting climax, the Spanish Armada, dispatched by the subtitle-speaking Catholic fanatic, Philip II ("Elizabeth is darkness, I am light"). A histrionic history lesson and courtly soap opera (the pregnant handmaid, the secret wedding, the queen's cracked heart but not visage), ludicrous in its extravagance, good for a snicker but not for an education. With Clive Owen, Abbie Cornish, Samantha Morton, Rhys Ifans, and Geoffrey Rush. (2007) — Duncan Shepherd
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