If you've seen the trailer for this spectacle, you've really seen the film. It's not much deeper. Director Shekhar Kapur has taken his innovative ideas from the original Elizabeth and overused them to produce a movie that seems bloated, vain, and hollow. Cate Blanchett returns as the Virgin Queen, but she's hamstrung by the script and the wigs. Meanwhile, the licenses taken with history border on fantasy.

As a home-theater demo disc, however, this HD DVD is hard to beat. Every leaded window pane, embroidered pearl, and strand of hair is etched with absolute clarity, and the rich and vibrant colors have an appealing glow. Also exemplary is the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound, with music and effects presented in a most lifelike way. The dialogue, even in the enormous cathedrals, is as clear as can be.

Limited extras include some justly deleted scenes and four mini-featurettes: The Reign Continues, Inside Elizabeth's World, Commanding the Winds: Creating the Armada, and Towers, Courts, and Cathedrals. In his director's commentary, Kapur occasionally corrects a few of his film's inaccuracies - without giving a good defense as to why he ignored the historical record in the first place. Then again, when it comes to high-def, perhaps it's best he did ignore history in one instance: To behead Mary, Queen of Scots, it took three messy chops, not one clean one.

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