Simon Dillon reviews the film

Fans of elaborate frocks and silly beards will find much to enjoy in Elizabeth The Golden Age, the sequel to 1998's Elizabeth. My personal frock/beard high point was the Spanish Ambassador, whose performance reflected his costume in that it epitomized a highly gigglesome slice of pantomime cartoon villainy.

Equally amusing was Clive Owen's ludicrously dashing Walter Raleigh, who comes back from the New World bearing tobacco and potatoes. He attempts to gain favour with Queen Elizabeth for a new expedition and seduces one of her ladies in waiting in the process. When Elizabeth finds out she's not too chuffed, because she rather fancied him herself (even though the relationship would have been impossible).

But the plot mostly concerns those dastardly Catholics and their Armada. Those of you who paid attention in history lessons will recall Prince Phillip of Spain was less than happy with a Protestant on the throne of England and wanted to depose her. Not that history is really on the agenda here. The filmmakers play very fast and loose with facts but only a real bore would quibble as the frocks and beards more than make up for this.

Whereas the first Elizabeth was a superb historical political thriller which earned itself a place on my ten best films of 1998 list, this is a much more sprawling affair and is unlikely to repeat the trick. However, Cate Blanchett is terrific and for her this is a triumphant return to the role that made her famous. Who knows? Perhaps this will get her more than an Oscar nomination this time (if Academy voters are happy to give the award to two Queen Elizabeths two years in a row). Geoffrey Rush's Walsingham is another major plus, making a welcome return after his excellent supporting role in the first film. Here his character is older, more melancholy and he discovers his judgement isn't as deviously sharp as it once was.

Make no mistake; Elizabeth The Golden Age is a mess. Wildly uneven in tone, the screenplay is a muddle and lurches awkwardly between court intrigues, soapish melodrama and special effects blockbuster (the Armada scenes). That said Cate Blanchett somehow manages to hold the thing together and director Shekhar Kapur calls the shots with flair.

Because Kapur has played up the Elizabeth myth at the expense of historical veracity, this ultimately takes on the look and feel of a fairy tale, particularly in the final act. An armour clad Elizabeth sitting astride her noble steed in silhouette overlooking the Armada battle from a cliff top is an image that wouldn't look out of place in one of the Lord of the Rings films.

Above all, this is a film that extols that most unfashionable of virtues: patriotism. Britain today has been weakened by Armadas in the form of the EU, political correctness, the nanny state, a blame culture and many other things, but Elizabeth The Golden Age celebrates the indomitable spirit of a nation that refused to kowtow to aggression, fought and won despite the odds. It also dares whisper, albeit subliminally, that Britain could be that nation again.

So it's worth a look for that as well as the frocks and beards.