Too many fans seem to be blown away

To me, this movie is perfection.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Actually I would've given this movie an 8 but I find I have to compensate for the idiots who review on IMDb using their personal tastes instead of some artistic criteria. If you want movies to be exactly tailored to your taste MAKE YOUR OWN MOVIE.I also have to compensate for the 'history must be as accurate as a documentary' idiots. If you want precision watch a documentary. This is historic FICTION if you can't understand that within the first 15 minutes of the movie I just don't know what to tell you.Now that I've got that out of the way... This is a well done costume drama. Natalie Portman as Anne and Scarlett Johansson as Mary are just incredible. Natalie shines, especially. The movie is as accurate as it needs to be to tell the story of two sisters set against each other and a family doomed by it's father's ambition, the intrigues of court and the whims of a king. All the actors are great.The story is very engaging and as I usually do with historic fiction, I checked it against the Wiki entry on the subject and found it be accurate on all major points. The direction and art production are also good.This movie got me from the very beginning and I found myself rooting for characters even though I knew how it would end for them.Yes, the movie does have some rough edges but for what it is and what it sets out to do, it succeeds. It's a compelling story, well told and well acted and if you like historic fiction and costume drama, well worth your while.

Boring movie. That's what comes to my mind when I think about this movie. The story of it is tremendously different from what the history has told us. If the story, even different, presented to us had something interesting, captivating in some way, such difference from reality possibly was going to be noticed far less. But the movie fails tremendously in presenting a compelling story.The characters are used in a poor way, we don't see such a good characters's development. The movie doesn't succeed when they try to show iconic and historical events of England. Then, in the end, the film becomes not so relevant and the story turn out be only the ambition of a family to ascend and forget how much this same family made the England's history change tremendously.

Whilst I think this movie Missed a trick by not casting Keira Knightley as Natalie Portman's sister, this is still an excellent movie featuring brilliant performances from Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric BanaPlot In A Paragraph: Two beautiful sisters, Anne (Portman) and Mary (Johansson) Boleyn, driven by their family's blind ambition, compete for the love of the handsome and passionate King Henry VIII. (Bana)David Morrisey (Walking Dead) Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Eddie Redmayne (Les Miserables) Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings & A Funeral) are all good in their supporting roles, as is future Amazing Spiderman, Andrew Garfield. However this movie is all about the three leads, and Portman is the best of an excellent bunch, giving what I consider, to be one of the best performances of her career.She gives a brilliant performance as the tragic Anne Boleyn. Her Speech in her final scene is wonderful, and I'm surprised her performance here has not been as praised as much as her Oscar winning turn in "Black Swan"Sadly her career will forever be linked with the Star Wars prequels which seemed to hurt her career, rather than help it. I think she is wonderful, and any movie automatically becomes better when her name is in the cast.

Of course, it is politically correct to nail everything on men in this period of history. It's true some of them had been manipulative, but one cannot reproach Henry for wanting a male heir. One shouldn't forget that these times were dangerous ones, for everybody, men and women alike.No, when I saw the movie, I kept saying to myself : Ann is the perfect slut, using all female weapons, jealous of her sister etc... That such a snake should be beheaded was no Wonder.The question is : is all this historically true, or have the script writers spiced the portray of this lady ? If so, I think Ann deserved what happened to her, considering of course the criteria of this period of history.