Preposterous film

The lurid plots, betrayals and intrigues of the time of the Tudor queens weren't enough as they were? They had to embellish, exaggerate and distort them into this tortured Gothic farrago? A bisexual Walsingham beds, then murders Marie de Guise? Elizabeth has the Spanish ambassador de Quadra assassinated? Poisoned dresses and a Dracula’s castle-style palace? Not even the talents of Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Fanny Ardant and Vincent Cassel can rescue this film from the ludicrous mess that it is. Doesn’t help that the performance of Joseph Fiennes, so good in Shakespeare in Love, is so limp here.