Elizabeth: The Golden Age

I love going to see movies at the end of their run - if you go at an odd enough time, you can get the cinema all to yourself!

Things I learned from "Elizabeth: The Golden Age":

 - The King of Spain is followed at all times by two priests carrying huge wooden crosses.
 - Walter Raleigh spoke with an American accent.
 - Sir Francis Drake did not exist. All of the achievements popularly credited to him were actually the work of Raleigh.
 - You can tell when you're in a Catholic country because the music suddenly becomes ominous.
 - The failure of the Babington Plot was not due to the incompetence of its participants, but rather part of a multi-layered machiavellian plot by those devious Spanish to provide a causus belli for the invasion of England!
 - Mary Stuart, despite having been raised in the French court, spoke with a Scottish accent.

I'd also mock the hell out of the idea of Elizabeth making speeches to her army from horseback while dressed in full armour, but it turns out that really did happen... well, probably not in full armour, but she did address her troops wearing a cuirass and helmet, and I'm willing to accept some dramatic licence for the rest...

I have to say, I did enjoy the film - the history may be... dubious, and I've never liked gratuitous anti-Spanishness (Where's the historical epics from Philip's point of view? Or about Isabella and Ferdinand? Or the Reqonquista? There's more to Spain than the Inquisition, damnit!), but Cate Blanchett is, of course, wonderful, the sets and costumes are beautiful, Geoffrey Rush is great... It's not a great film, but it's got enough great actors and scenes that it's hard to hate.

I admit, it probably helps that Tudor England is an area of history I'm not actually all that familar with, so most of the anachronisms probably went over my head...

Also, was it just me, or did the King of Spain look uncannily like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Intentional, or just coincidence, I wonder...