Plundering the annals of time for screenplay ideas is an absolute no-brainer. Most of what's gone down is too inspiring/tragic/juicy to be believed, and since no one owns the rights to recorded human history, it's all just waiting to be rushed into development. The issue then becomes what filmmakers owe their audience in the way of authenticity: If you're going to make a movie about events that actually happened, are you beholden to the truth, or are you free to play fast and loose with the facts in the name of self-expression?

Put this question to the minds behind "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," and director Shekhar Kapur would probably flash his artistic license, and maybe even the tiny badge I assume comes with it. He came under fire for the historical inaccuracies found in 1998's "Elizabeth," a nonetheless killer piece of cinema that imagined the future Virgin Queen as a lusty young mistress on the eve of her coronation. And Kapur certainly doesn't shy away from taking liberties in "The Golden Age," but the difference this time around is that the sequel lacks the brilliance necessary to distract those who might go fetal over the mere fact that the eyes of Elizabeth I were tawny brown and not Blanchett blue.

The Oscar-winning Australian reprises the role that first earned her international acclaim, and as "The Golden Age" opens, it's 1585, and Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth is contending with the religious discord that will soon thrust Protestant England into a war with powerful Catholic Spain. Elizabeth's fierce desire to ensure freedom of worship in her country is at odds with the deadly alliance forged between her imprisoned Catholic cousin Mary Stuart (the amazing Samantha Morton in full Scottish burr) and Spain's Philip II. Assassination attempts, shadowy intrigue, and Inquisition-worthy torture abound, though Elizabeth's longtime advisor Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush, of course) seems always to be one step ahead.

Meanwhile, back at the castle, Elizabeth has just made the acquaintance of the dashing Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen, the hardest-working man in show business), who impresses his queen - as well as favored lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton (Aussie ingénue Abbie Cornish) - with a smirking show-and-tell from the New World. Still ensuring her subjects of her ability to produce an heir at the age of 52, Elizabeth continues to field a laughably unsuitable Who's Who of European royalty as possible husbands, while her loneliness and taste for adventure enthralls her with Raleigh. Royalty 20 years his senior not being a romantic option for the commoner, Raleigh occupies himself with the comely Bess, leading to a heated love triangle that invokes Elizabeth's campy wrath: "My bitches wear MY collars!"

Basically two movies in one, "The Golden Age" combines sweeping historical epic with corseted catfight, but ultimately neither thread succeeds. And while I've never been one to assign blame - oh, wait; I totally am! It's Clive Owen's fault. His seafaring stud has all the nuance of a gangplank to the face, whether he's furrowing his brow to defy his queen, delicately freeing a lady from the confines of her brocade, or hanging Fabio-style from the ropes of a ship just before the ignominious defeat of the Spanish Armada. (And anyone who thinks I just gave away the ending should try opening a book.)

What didn't happen, however, is Raleigh taking out the entire Armada by his swashbuckling lonesome, though director Kapur has no qualms depicting it that way. It's details like this that can take an audience right out of a film with no hope of return. (Jacket over a puddle? Never happened.) Then again, it's not a documentary; it's entertainment. So maybe the filmmaker's responsibility to the truth depends solely on your expectations, which renders my job rather moot. In any case, "The Golden Age" is yummy eye candy, scrumptiously lit and designed, though Kapur's unnecessarily complicated shooting angles often flirt with the precious. And tune out the noisy score, with its annoying, angels-on-high insistence.

Kapur apparently intends Elizabeth I's story to be told in three parts, the final chapter focusing on the close of her reign as England has settled into a time of prosperity and artistic glory (or "Shakespeare in Love II: The Redeadening"). Fortunately, the supreme Blanchett emerges from "The Golden Age" unscathed, and at this point (and with apologies to Bette Davis and Dame Judi Dench) she owns the role. So if Blanchett's back, then she can count me in, too. Unless Kapur allows himself the dramatic carte blanche to bring Rush's Walsingham back from the grave: soap-opera tactics are a line one really mustn't cross.