Now that Elizabeth: The Golden Age has been released in some parts, reviews are pouring in. Unfortunately from what I have come across, the reviews seem to be quite bad, granted not as bad as one could imagine, but still it seems the second coming of Queen Elizabeth didn’t quite live up to expecations. :/ Hear are some of the less harsher ones, and I have scanned the two page review in the October 19th issue of Entertainment Weekly, view those here.

From – Entertainment Weekly
In the midst of all this 1980s-style Masterpiece Theatreism, meanwhile, one young performer sticks out as a reminder that Elizabeth: The Golden Age is, after all, a picture also made with a concern for today’s younger tastes in self-actualization. As her majesty’s royal favorite, Bess, Cornish (soon to appear in Stop Loss opposite Ryan Phillippe) comes across at every moment as a modern girl testing her girl power. Peach-toned and Australian like Blanchett, and poised in E2 for larger future fame the way Blanchett was in E1, the 25-year-old Cornish is a star with Now appeal synthesized into a production no longer sure what it wants to say about Then.

From – Roger Ebert
Elizabeth: The Golden Age is weighed down by its splendor. There are scenes where the costumes are so sumptuous, the sets so vast, the music so insistent, that we lose sight of the humans behind the dazzle of the production. Unlike Elizabeth (1998) by the same director, Shekhar Kapur, this film rides low in the water, its cargo of opulence too much to carry.

From – ReelViews
Clive Owen is suitably dashing and Abbie Cornish is adorable, but neither draws the camera’s attention with regularity. Although the performances are all workmanlike, they are unlikely to garner much notice when it comes time for Oscar nominations to be announced. (Blanchett may well be nominated, but her chances are better as Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There than as the Queen in Elizabeth.)

From – E! Online
All work and no play make Elizabeth a dull girl: The scenes between her and Owen have true heat, and they allow Blanchett to reveal the vulnerability beneath the power.

From – Variety
Cornish is perfectly comely as the court hottie; while Morton has a terrific moment when, after nervously awaiting news of Elizabeth’s assassination, her hopeful expectations turn to emotional obliteration upon learning her cousin has survived and she herself is now under arrest for treason — you can feel the breath of life go right out of her.

From – CompuServe
Some scenes stand out in the mostly ho-hum, academic-like movie, principally the queen’s patronizing dismissal of suitors such as the much young Austrian Archduke–whom she saves from his halting English by speaking to him in fluent German. With Geoffrey Rush practically wasted in the role of the queen’s chief adviser, the production, filmed in England, Scotland, and London’s Shepperton studios, is several steps behind director Kapur’s original Elizabeth.