An unnecessary follow-up to the narrative and thematic completion of Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is more of the same but with less insight, intrigue, and intimacy. The high aesthetic values of returning director Shekhar Kapur's 1998 historical drama are in tact here, and screenwriters William Nicholson and the returning Michael Hirst continue to make history more accessible to the masses by focusing on conspiracies, unrequited and jealous love, and wartime politics. There was a lot happening in the first film, and there's more going on here. What made the first film work as well as it did was the way Hirst took and reworked historical facts to suit the rise (or decline, depending on your point of view) of an innocent, love-hungry young woman into a cold, sometimes cruel statue of a queen. Part of the problem here is that Elizabeth I is now that statuesque figure, towering above the seemingly petty concerns of her youth, and our emotional attachment to her is similarly separated. Nicholson and Hirst attempt to shade her with vulnerability and moral ambivalence, but those efforts feel forced in comparison to the scope of events unfolding around her. The film opens over a decade after the events of its predecessor in the year 1585. Spain is the most powerful empire in the world, and King Philip II (Jordi Molla), a devout Catholic, is prepared to have open, holy war against England and its Protestant queen Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett). A sickly, green hue surrounds the court of Philip, as he sets in motion a plot within England to overthrow Elizabeth and put in her place Mary, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton), whom, although in prison for treason, the Spanish speak of as the English queen in waiting. Elizabeth is still unmarried, and suitors from around the globe are still actively pursuing her. The pirate Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) has returned from the New World with gifts of tobacco, Spanish gold, and natives from the new land he has named in the queen's honor: Virginia. Elizabeth is intrigued by the pirate, whom the Spanish in her court openly despise, and sends her lady-in-waiting Bess (Abbie Cornish) to learn more about him. Meanwhile in Spain, Philip is assembling a great naval force to take advantage of England's weakened military power and waits for the proper time to strike. The story hits many of the some notes as the first film with much less success. There's an impossible-to-realize love story between Raleigh and Elizabeth, after the pirate captures the queen's imagination with his description of finding the New World after weeks at sea.