This movie may not be everyone's cup of tea, as it's dense on politics at times, and gruesome at others. However, for those reviewers who claim this film demonstrates religious bigotry, I beg to differ. Written and visual portraits from this time period reveal that the Spanish did indeed behave and dress the way they appeared in the film. Dour, black-wearing, bearded, somber, and convinced that Elizabeth was an Infidel who deserved to be destroyed. In addition, Philip II's infirmities and strange physique were portrayed as they truly were at the time; the House of Hapsburg and its various branches was becoming so inbred in early modern Europe that many of its members were physically deformed. This is no different than discussing how that the House of Tudor, for whatever physical/genetic reasons, clearly had reduced fertility during Henry VIII's time and afterward -- and saying so is hardly anti-Protestant prejudice. These are historical facts, and histories of the time period make them abundantly clear.
The movie does not try to absolve Elizabeth from all religious prejudice; indeed, it does show her ministers' gruesome vengeance -- with confessions extracted from torture -- against Catholics suspected of plotting her demise. However, it is important to keep in mind that context of the times, and that the religious wars were brutal across Europe. Compared to the Spanish Inquisition, Elizabethan England was far less violent.
Her reign was also less violent than her father Henry VIII's by far -- he whose rule saw widespread oppression and terrorism against Catholics and Protestants alike, depending on how the religious/political winds were blowing across Europe at any given moment, and given the views and actions of Henry's enemies/allies/wives/lovers of any given moment.
Frankly, I find it hard to believe that even the most devout of Catholics of today would still claim that it would have been better for autocratic Spain, which had practically NO democratic tradition, and in which the Inquisition against Protestants, Jews, Muslims, accused heretics, etc. etc. was in full swing, to have conquered England in 1588.... The movie is also very useful in demonstrating how Elizabeth's victories and her enduring rule were in large part a result of her turning herself into a quasi-religious icon for her realm -- something the first film in the series makes even more clear -- and the price she had to pay for that decision. Subtle people will detect the subtleties in the film, and appreciate them. People with a major religious axe to grind, however, probably will not.Get more detail about Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
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