Desultory review: "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"

I had no problems with the original "Elizabeth"—how could I, with Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, and Christopher Eccleston all snarling and snapping at one another in a deathmatch power struggle?—even though it took some liberties with the actual history. Kapur got the story pretty much right, following Elizabeth's transition from politically inexperienced young woman (granted, it's debatable that she was ever truly naive, given her family) to iconic figure and skillful manipulator, and more to the point, the story actually progressed. With the sequel, he's got John "You Can Call Me Doctah" Dee, Francis "I'll Be In My Hammock" Drake, Walter "Put That In Your Pipe" Raleigh, and the whole bloody Spanish Armada, along with Elizabeth's burgeoning cult of personality; you'd think the movie would be a cinch. But no, apparently it's not exciting enough to show how a schemey competent woman handled national crisis; far better to have lots of her waffling between her political goals and her need for lurrrrve, with occasional breaks for posing and endless shots through glass because DO YOU SEE, IT'S ALL ABOUT DISTANCE AND IMAGE DO YOU GET IT YET DO YOU? Halfway through the movie I gave up hope, slumped down in my seat, and waited for it to be over, whenever that might be; eventually the ships would show up and maybe then I could go home. So sure, fine, the Armada was completely destroyed by fireships off Tilbury rather than just being driven to their destruction off Ireland. Hey, okay, Raleigh was so studly that he rode a blazing frigate straight into a Spanish ship, steering with his force of personality rather than the wheel. Good, whatever, Philip of Spain learned of his defeat by intoning (in dreadful slow mincing Spanish), "Elizabeth is the dark, I am the light," and seeing a candle blown out. I dun care. You've smothered me into indifference with the Elizabethan vogueing and the flirting with Raleigh and the Raleigh/Bess smooches and the oh here's Mary Stewart and the hey Jesuits hang out in a basement dyeing shit red because it looks more ominous and the Catholics generally all flashing the evil eyeliner and I am putting on my WTF parka and heading for WTFistan because you've somehow made this all so dull.

Seriously, if the words "bored now" come to mind in describing your depiction of one of England's best-known historical events, yor doin it wrong.

The novelist's lament

Somewhere amid the swampy mangroves, Carl Hiaasen is shaking a copy of the newspaper and screaming, "See? SEE? I don't just make these things up!" John Scalzi has a lovely write-up of Florida legislator Bob Allen's latest out-of-left-field excuse for soliciting an undercover cop in a park restroom. I've heard of facing your fears, but walking into their bathroom stall to offer them a twenty and a real good time is new.

In news that won't cause a shudder of amused revulsion, however, "Stardust" comes out this weekend. If it doesn't make a huge splash, it certainly won't be for lack of Neil Gaiman's efforts, as he's been writing it up ceaselessly on his journal, doing the press junket slogging, and being smooched by Jonathan Ross promoting it at Comic Con. I like the Russian posters better than the American ones; mine Slavic brethren got genuine jokes, rather than a generic tagline. Witness Michelle Pfeiffer smirking beneath the words "Absolute Hag"; Tristan [sic--oh noes, they shot off his r!], Yvaine, and Captain Shakespeare, respectively, get "Star Warrior," "Superstar," and, for reasons made clear in the film, "Genuine Manly Man." I may come to like De Niro yet.

Like a lord's great kitchen without a fire in't

Proof that all the cool people like to hang out together: The Revengers Tragedy. I read about the play, attributed to Torneur but probably written by Middleton, years ago and thought it sounded like the standard Jacobean blurdfest. How seriously can you take a play in which the characters' names include Vengeance, Chastisement, Supervacuous, Luxurious, and Spurious? It's the Jacobean equivalent of Tarantino: dark humor, massive body count, few if any sympathetic characters, and lots of madonna/whore treatments for the ladies. Not my cup of tea.

But oh, Netflix, you seductive font of information, someone's done an update and you thought I might enjoy it. Let's see, there's Alex Cox, writer/director of "Repo Man," one of my favorite movies ever to include shrimp, Harry Dean Stanton, and tiny pine-scented air fresheners, directing it as a neo-Orwellian dystopia in Liverpool. You've got the contained nuclear bomb that is Christopher Eccleston, pissed off and out for bloody revenge, with occasional breaks to play ventriloquist with his dead wife's skull. There's Derek Jacobi as the duke, looking like Karl Lagerfeld's recently disinterred twin brother, sleazing around after young women and poisoning their drinks if they're not game. The duke's crew of caddish, manipulative sons includes both Eddie Izzard and Marc Warren, known to the lucky few as Mr. Teatime the assassin from the BBC's Hogfather. All that, and Chumbawamba does the music? Give it! Give it now!

Verdict: It almost works. The acting is generally great, although Castiza and her mother are a bit weak, and Izzard in particular is a pleasant surprise. You can't say he's playing it straight, exactly, but he's more restrained than the rest of the brothers, and his scenes with Eccleston are spot on. Liverpool's combination of industrial works and ancient churches suits perfectly, and the city looks convincingly half-abandoned. The cheerfully wicked music, pop tunes for the apocalypse, burbles along merrily as everything goes to hell.

What didn't work for me was the dialogue. Paring down the original text to make room for shots makes sense, and those edits flow smoothly, but the interwoven modern lines jar too often. "Pistols! Treason! Guards! Help! My lord, the Duke, is murdered!" "No I'm not." Funny, but uneven. I felt cheated whenever contemporary lines were added; the switch from "My hairs are white, but yet my sins are green" to language without that rhythm and flow was like going from Bach to Bolton. The actors do what they can with it, with the seasoned pros managing better than most, but the shifts kept pulling me out of the story.

I'd love to hear other reactions from people who have seen this. "Shakespeare in Love" it ain't, what with the death and the vomiting of blood and the pimping out of siblings for morally dubious gain, so it was never going to get huge play, but it takes a lot of interesting risks.