Too many fans seem to be blown away

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Excellent but underrated film

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Loved this adaptation of the historical time of James VI of England. What I was not too sure of is was James VI a bisexual? Because he is portrayed as a cruel unfeeling husband to his wife who at first treats her merely as a breeding mare and is callous and a brute, but then is seen liking the company of young men! In one particular scene James is alone with one of the conspirators and in a deal wants him to perform a sex act on him was this a true fact? I have not read in any history books that the king of England was bisexual so was it just a sub plot? Well played by Robert Carlisle who plays him as a cruel selfish man with a bad leg that he drags around.Loved the whole thing great acting from all, Guy Fawkes played by Michael Fassbender was very good a moody fellow who would do anything for his cause.I thoroughly recommend this drama very very good love the execution scene it showed gore and fear.

As a lover of British History, and a as fan of some of this movie/mini series' more prominent actors i.e. Robert Carlise, Kevin McKidd and Richard Coyle, I was looking forward to this adaptation of the circumstances leading up to the events of November 5th 1605 with great anticipation. However, I was somewhat disappointed. It was not so much the historical inaccuracies, these are now somewhat expected, as it seems these days History just isn't interesting enough just to be shown as it actually happened, and needs dumbing down or tweaking.I was more disappointed at the overall tone of the piece as it is openly biased in favour of the catholics and as a result history seems to have been completely rewritten to make England, Queen Elizabeth I, Kinf James I and every other protestant in the world evil conspirators and murderers. In the same vein we are shown how Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby and the rest of his gang of Catholic TERRORISTS, were really only martyrs to a great cause and were forced into this action by a disfigured, cruel, oppressive and homosexual sex predator of a King, who lied to the people and deserved to get his evil arse blown to smithereens anyway.It is also seems to be anti-English and Pro-Scottish which doesn't make sense at all as the disagreements between England and Scotland had nothing at all to to with the Gunpowder Plot and it seems the entire first half of this three hour lie-fest highlighted the 'plight' of Mary, Queen of Scots just to justify the anti-English sentiment.Of course it never mentions once the lying, plotting and conniving she herself did against her cousin Elizabeth, which bought about her 'reluctant' execution by the English Queen.Apart from using it to work in some anti-English propaganda, the whole Mary, Queen of Scots story line wasn't needed. It took place 40 years before Guy Fawkes and his cronies tried to blow up Parliament and was just a waste of time and money. Its not like it even set the scene, the events of the 1560's and the events of 1605 are completely unrelated. I'm sure the public would have much preferred to see a more accurate three hour in depth story about 1605 than anything else.I just feel as a protestant and an Englishman, that this film went too far in it's inaccurate portrayals and political sentiments against me and my kind and cannot justify the openly political and religious stance it made by portraying the catholics of 16th and 17th century Britain as the nice guys of the piece. It is on a par with portraying the Nazis as humanists with morals and Al-Qaeda terrorists as brave soldiers with just cause. I feel that had a programme, film, play, book or song directed so much negative feeling and bile towards any other country, religion, race, colour, creed or faction, it would have been banned as racist and bigoted, and wouldn't even have seen the light of day. I myself am not racist against any country or religion, especially not against my fellow Britons, my Scotttish and Welsh brethren, it just hurts me that even now in the 21st Century these two great countries still feel significantly insecure that they have to make such jibes and comments towards the English as they feel it raises their position somewhat.To be honest devolution hasn't helped. It has done more to recreate the politics and feeling of the era depicted here than anything else, and unfortunately as a result, the division between our three countries is now growing wider, and the undertones shown in this production substantiates this fact.As far as Scotland and Wales are concerned the United Kingdom of Great Britain is sadly no more

I found this a very compelling and fascinating movie. As a non-Britain I lack sufficient historical knowledge to judge the accuracy of the script, but to me it all was quite convincing. I was only disappointed that the story was so harshly split up in two chronological halves, separated by some decades in time, I would like to have known how James grew up and became the person that he was at the beginning of part two. There are other differences between both parts of the series. In the first part the story evolves gradually, new people are introduced and you can watch the drama grow. The second part is more abrupt, like we have to board on an already moving train, there's an abundance of new characters (for instance the whole subversive group around Guy Fawkes) who are hardly introduced to us, so (for me at least) it was much harder to follow the historic goings on. The incidental, and rather unexpected direct facing of the viewer by some of the protagonists was confusing and seemed unnecessary, and strangely enough it it only occurred two or three times at the beginning of the second part, as if the writer and director themselves soon lost interest in this curious and a bit pretentious directorial ingenuity.For the rest I very much enjoyed this movie, the settings are beautiful, there's no reluctance in showing some heavy violence (which enhanced the authenticity of the story) and the acting is overall of the highest level. I especially want to mention Clémence Poésy as Mary Queen of Scots, she is not only beautiful but gives a stunning performance as the young, at start insecure, but rapidly maturing queen. Her dealing with the the harsh and mistrusting protestant Scots, her sad marriage with an abusive power-hungry lord Darley (Paul Nicholls in a great performance!), her passionate liaison with Bothwell, it's all portrayed in a very moving and believable way. Steven Duffy as her scheming half-brother Lord James was equally great, and Kevin McKidd as Bothwell reminded me of Daniel Craig in Casino Royal, a mixture of rugged charm, wild passion and relentless violence in protecting his love: the strong and reliable suitor that every girl (and some boys!) dreams about!! The absolute star of the second half is Robert Carlyle as King James. That's partly due to the intelligent script, that gives this king an intriguing ambivalent character: hunger for power, at the same time awareness of his own sad posture and his shortcomings as a ruler, scolding his poor wife (who soon makes the best of it, developing into a Lady MacBeth-like power of her own) and mimic every bit of advice he get's (especially from the ominous Lord Cecil) out of lack of confidence. But Robert Carlyle turns this character into a real life person of flesh and blood in a totally convincing and almost blood-chilling way, like a Shakespearean Richard III, evoking admiration mingled with repulsion, while you can see the madness growing on him. He impressed me very, very much.About the homosexual tendency in this version of King James there're already said some things here, I don't know anything about the historical backgrounds of it, but for me there was no need whatsoever to bring that in. Indeed, the forcing by the king of a lord into an (insinuated) royal blow-job looked anachronistically modern to me and a bit awkward, to say the least, and the portrayal by Robert Carlyle certainly didn't need this extra psychological excuse for his character-development.I read some indignant comments here on the Queen Anne by Sira Stampe, but I liked her portrayal very much, she gave this stiff and disregarded queen poise and strength and she brought in the few laughs that at times gratefully counterbalanced the heaviness of this long (but certainly not over-long!) and dramatic story.All in all a great watch and I rank it 9 out of 10.

It might be useful to remember that on returning to Scotland, Mary had a past as Dauphine and Queen of France (wife, 1548-1560, of Francis II, son of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici, who died in 1560 after just one year of reign). Though Catherine de' Medici's court was quite a colourful place, it was surely not such a dreary place to be "in exile". And what about the Queen of Scots, ex Queen of France, jumping to the saddle and riding astride? In the end, it might be better to invent new names for loosely history-based figures of fiction, rather than proceed to these tiresome gaps and anachronisms which just tend to confuse spectators.