Henry VIII
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Movie Reviews of Henry VIII
Movie Review: HenryV111
Summary: 5 Stars
Good and interesting the actors and acting in this movie is very good. I think Ray Winstone is the best HenryV111 I have seen.Movie Review: great other than showing a rape
Summary: 5 Stars
thought this was a great series. loved it. other than one part that i absolutely hate. they had no need to show a rape.Movie Review: A great period piece
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't understand the bad ratings but I found this to be an enjoyable period piece with good acting and costumes.Movie Review: Henry lover
Summary: 5 Stars
Ray Winstone is in my oppinion the best Henry the VIII. Helena Bonham Carter is also brilliant as Anne Boleyn.Movie Review: Truly enjoyable film
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been reading these negative reviews of this film and I truly wonder if there's a single substantive complaint. From criticisms of the costume choices to the soundtrack to Ray Winstone's accent, I'm wondering if anyone was watching this film for its cinematic value rather than, like LOTR fans with too much time on their hands, squinting at the screen to see if they could detect some flaws. Did the film capture with compelling force key aspects of Henry's relationships with his wives? In my view, it certainly did.
In terms of the character of Henry himself: okay, they got an actor who was shorter than some of the other cast and he has a working-class accent. But the truth is that if their actor for the role of Henry VIII had been speaking in a historically accurate dialect, none of us would have been able to understand a word that he said. The English of the time bore very little resemblance to the English that we speak now. And seriously, does it have anything to do with the quality of the movie that Henry was shorter than some of the other male cast members (even though, as one reviewer points out, he was in real life more than 6 feet tall)? Give me a break. I research and write historical novels and I don't remember once being distressed if physical aspects such as height or eye color weren't sufficiently represented in novels I've read or movies I've watched. It certainly has no bearing on the quality of the work.
One of the primary jobs of those who perform historical works is to make the stories as compelling today as they were for the people who lived them. So many things have fundamentally changed from that culture to this, that to watch the real players live out their lives in the way they actually did would pack little emotional punch. For instance, standards of beauty have dramatically changed -- in my view, of the portraits of Henry's wives that survive, Anne of Cleves is easily the most attractive, although Henry was so disgusted by her that he couldn't even consummate his marriage. Would it make sense to, in the pursuit of historical accuracy, have her portrayed in the film as an attractive woman? Please. If the actress they had play Anne Boleyn looked anything like her portrait no-one would believe that anyone got hot and bothered about her, let alone risk losing his kingdom for her. Should we also be distressed that her extra nipple and partial sixth finger weren't shown?
Ray Winstone is a superb actor and I believe he fully realizes the contradictions in Henry's character. He wasn't a "bouncer" as one reviewer characterized him, but he certainly was a man of the people with an exuberant social life and friendships that spanned broad spectrums of the social ladder. I think that Winstone does an admirable job of playing Henry as the dynamic narcissistic sociopath that he was. Henry's absolute inability to incorporate the concerns of anyone else's lives into his decision calucli is one of the aspects that made him seem larger than life, and his torment over his status with God makes him human. He was not a good man, nor a kind one, nor an honest one, but Winstone makes you care about him anyway. Henry lived life voraciously, participating in his own tournaments, gorging himself on food and drink and women, writing books and sonnets and songs. This is one of the few films I have seen which, at least to some extent, begins to do justice to that Henry.
As for the portrayals of his wives, I was moved by Assumpta Serna's expression of Katherine of Aragon, and by the tenderness exhibited in her early relationship with Henry. She was a woman of great dignity, spirituality and kindness, and she is portrayed, not as a difficult woman trying to trip up her ex, but as the soul-searching daughter of the church that she was.
The reason I did not give this film 5 stars is Helena Bonham Carter's portrayal of Anne, which is one of the weakest evocations I have seen. Partly a fault of the script-writing, Bonham Carter shows an Anne which is neither decisive enough to definitively know what she wants, nor principled enough to make you want her to get it. My favorite portrayal of Anne Boleyn is in "Anne of the Thousand Days" where Genevieve Bujold plays her with tremendous passion and sympathy. Still, as the film progresses, Bonham Carter improves her performance--by the time Anne is executed, you really are sorry to see her go.
Jane Seymour is not portrayed as a "nag", as one reviewer asserts, nor does she "meddle." In reality, she did encourage Henry to show his softer side toward his daughters, and reached out to both Mary and Elizabeth. Maybe that's what is being characterized as "nagging". I don't know. Although we'll never know how she felt about the slaughter of Robert Aske, I think it would be fair to say that she would have been preturbed by it. I don't think it's too much artistic license to take to show her grow agitated over the news. I think it's unlikely Henry would have struck her when she was pregnant. But I'm not going to throw a fit over that, either. I liked the portrayal of the relationship, and thought overall it illustrated Jane's submission to Henry and her deferral to his wishes. By the way, Henry's later observations about Jane and his fond remembrances of her would naturally have been tainted by his looking through rose-colored goggles - since she was the only wife who provided him with a son. As Alison Weir noted in her exceptional book "The Six Wives of Henry VIII", later in life when Henry had a family portrait painted, he put Jane Seymour, then long dead, in the picture with him.
Anne of Cleves is given the role in Henry's life that she played: that of a minor character whose importance was greater to Cranmer than anyone else. Katherine Howard is portrayed rather well as the vacuous, unintelligent beauty that it appears she was in reality. 'Nuff said.
Catherine Parr is a minor character, but Clare Holman played her beautifully. I also especially enjoyed Sean Bean's role as Robert Aske, who leads the doomed Catholic rebellion. I think that the Duke of Norfolk, who truly was a villain, is captured as such, and the internal court intrigues are fascinating.
The sets are rich in color and variation, and the cast seems well-matched to one another. I am actually astonished that this film did not garner more appreciation from the viewers in these pages. I will certainly watch it again.