Not a godawful movie, but close.
Badly miscast: Mary with a strong Irish accent; Margot Robbie in appearance, voice, and acting not convincing as a Queen, the daughter of Henry VIII, or the force of history Elizabeth I was. The screenplay not only departs from the historical record for farcical reasons (Mary's dramatic life and death need little massaging) but introduces anachronisms ranging from gender study issues, to the incongruous casting of minorities in some virtue peddling Oscar Ceremony shoutout.
Adding in, for whatever reason, a prominent but historically impossible gay/cross dressing subplot, thriving in 16th Century, John Knox-ian Holyrood Castle. Hard to follow during long stretches of promise/double cross/dastardly plots a go go/to war or not to war, and when followed intermittently interesting.
I left feeling even more admiration for Shakespeare: his distillation of the complexity and violence of Scottish history in Macbeth, with nary a nod to his or our modern sensitivities of the moment, is, in the context of reviewing this movie, as of comparing Duane Allman's solo in Crossroads, to my awkward, and slow version of Pipeline by the Ventures.
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