Elizabeth and the Boring Pirate

OK guys, I promise this isn't going to turn into the blog where your friend Don bitches about movies all the time.

BUT.....

I watch a lot of movies. Less now than I used to, but I watch a lot. And the strange thing is that I have a really good memory about plots, lines, actors and actresses, etc. I can usually tell you if I liked or hated a film and why even years down the road. I saw Elizabeth in 1999 with my friend Michelle at the Lakewood 15. It was a late afternoon show. There was a scene with naked people in it. In the end Cate Blanchett was in white makeup and looked like a statue. It had that Joseph Fiennes guy I hate in it. That's all I remember. I don't know if I liked it. I don't remember the plot. I couldn't pick out any of the other actors and actresses in it. [even though looking at IMDB the cast is stacked with lesser known actors I love: Geoffrey Rush, Vincent Cassell, Christopher Eccleston, Emily Mortimer] It's just a complete blank.

I was thinking about this this evening before seeing Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Why was I here? Why was I strangely excited to see the sequel to a movie I'd completely forgotten?

Well, because I'm an idiot.

I don't hate E:TGA. I just don't care about it. It's pretty and empty. Cate Blanchett is amazing. I don't know when she took the crown from Julianne Moore as "Most compelling actress alive" [Hannibal, maybe?] but it takes a lot to make me not care about a movie she's front-and-center in. Clive Owen plays Sir Walter Raleigh, who apparently was the most boring pirate in history. I think Clive's probably at his best when he's playing distant, disaffected characters [see Children of Men or Croupier], but an adventurer like Raleigh couldn't have been this boring.

Some stuff happens. People ride horses, talk in hallways, dance, write letters, unlace bodices. Spain wants to take England over or something. A couple people are killed. Mary, Queen of the Scots of Scotland is executed. Raleigh knocks up some chick. Some ships start on fire. I yawn.

A friend of mine called about 2/3 of the way through the film. Normally I'd just wait until the end of the movie, but she was having a bad day so I got up to make sure she wasn't on a rooftop or something. But as I was talking I realized I didn't want to go back in. That's not the sign of me hating a film. Hating a movie is compelling to me because I try to decide where it went wrong, what bad decisions happened, or how I'd make it different. Instead of feeling that, I felt nothing. Which to me is the sign of a total failure.