Despite the talents of Cate Blanchet, Geoffery Rush, and Clive Owen, talent wasn’t enough to overcome the tragically inaccurate and Bollywood concoction of fantasy director Shekhar Kapur presented in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Why it is Elizabeth I’s legendary life, already rife with intrigue, spectacle and grandeur, had to be further embellished by the wretched screenplay of William Nicholson and Michael Hirst is quite beyond my comprehension. One wonders, did these men not read any of Elizabeth’s history? Surely it was some sort of Hollywood joke that had these writers placing Sir Walter Raleigh as the brash buccaneer who defeated the Spanish Armada? Surely they knew it was in fact Sir Francis Drake, scourge of the Spanish Navy, who takes the crown for this legendary sea battle? From costumes, sets through to screenplay, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, is a frustratingly false frisson of complete fantasy. Elizabeth I must be rampaging in her grave.