..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Elizabeth:
The Golden Age
Directed by Shekhar Kapur

We finally got the first real shock of the 2007 Toronto Film Festival today. Elizabeth: The Golden Age is tarnished on an epic level.

I’ll keep it simple. The movie has way too much story, way too few places where an audience can link in emotionally, an absolute waste of a parade of excellent Oscar-nominated and winning actors including Clive Owens, Samantha Morton and this time, even Geoffrey Rush, enough music to choke an iPod, and a hyperkinetic parade of cool, but logic-free shots that at some point feels like you are choking on the Scott Brothers’ leftovers.

Todd McCarthy clocked the running time at 114 minutes. It didn’t seem that long…though it felt much longer.

And The Great Cate, who may well win an Oscar for her turn in I’m Not There this year, is called upon to pull her goodies from her bag of tricks, but really, she too often feels like a mannequin with a string that Shekhar Kapur pulls whenever he wants a power acting moment. Now do that great power scream… look pained… brighten up your eyes mischievously. You can’t really complain about the performance, but any awards talk will be for Cate being Cate, since her role here simply doesn’t demand a single new curve or twist out of this brilliant actress.

I can’t say it was the most painful movie I have seen this year, this month, or this week. But simply put, it’s not good. It will get a Costume nod and maybe production design and in a desperate chase for women to nominate, maybe Ms Blanchett can still go lead here and Supporting for her Dylan. But I really, really loved the original. And this one, for all intents of purposes, is much more in the troubled vein of Kapur’s The Four Feathers than of my beloved Elizabeth.

- David Poland