Elizabeth: The Golden Age, for both better and worse, is not your run-of-the-mill costume drama.

Not that it doesn’t feature plenty of fancy period garb – costume designer Alexandra Byrne clearly worked some overtime here, and her Academy Award nomination is well-deserved – but the film, rather than being a stuffy, literate affair, is instead a fast-paced, flashy, sweeping period piece that mostly foregoes both long-winded discourse and historical precision. As such, it’s a lot more fun than your average cinematic dip into British history, though sticklers for detail (and, for the most part, dialogue) will almost surely be disappointed.Cate Blanchett, an Oscar hopeful herself, easily jumps back into the royal role she originated in 1998’s Elizabeth, though the Queen here is an older, much more practiced ruler than we saw before. It’s a good thing, too, since The Golden Age catches up with her during a particularly trying time; as Spain’s Catholic King Phillip II (Jordi Mollá) plots against her – with her imprisoned cousin Mary Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) a key part of his cunning strategy to invade England – she also finds herself desperate to find a proper suitor and produce an heir. One possible solution to the problems posed by the looming Spanish Armada and to Elizabeth’s own biological clock is represented by the dashing seafarer Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), who shows up to appeal to the Queen’s repressed sense of adventure in order to secure funding for a colony in the New World. Of course, Elizabeth can’t actually settle down with the handsome, non-royal Raleigh (though they surely spend a lot more “cuddle time” together in the film than they did in real life) but he does prove to be a fine man to have around when the greatest fleet of ships ever assembled shows up at Britain’s back door, cannons a-blazing.

That climactic sequence, and many scenes that come before it, speak to the film’s rich visual splendor; there isn’t a corner cut or a detail overlooked in the fussed-over shot compositions, the meticulous production design, or the previously mentioned costuming. Blanchett is pretty radiant, too, and still lends the role the gravity it deserves – except for an immature outburst or two that seems forced and out-of-character. But, again, that might be more the fault of the filmmakers, who are confident to let The Golden Age play out as operatic melodrama rather than serious historical filmmaking. Only a few elements – like a sniveling Catholic conspirator played by Rhys Ifans – come off as way over-the-top, but in all its bluster the film really does miss a lot of opportunities for small, engaging moments (Geoffrey Rush, as Elizabeth’s military mastermind Francis Walsingham, feels especially neglected).

Overall, though, Elizabeth: The Golden Age succeeds where many other period pieces fail: it’s actually entertaining. That’s not a small accomplishment, and this film does have a lot to offer to the more accepting audience.

DVD features include the behind-the-scenes documentary The Reign Continues, an in-depth look at the creation of the climactic ship battle scenes, featurettes on the film’s locations and production design, nine minutes of deleted scenes, and commentary with director Shekhar Kapur.