This was an attempt and condenscing a very long, 6 hour miniseries into 2 hours. They recast all except 2 of the actors, and glossed over most of the important parts of history. The miniseries was over-long, I'll grant you, but they didn't miss anything. This was... muddled.
There's no real rythm to this film, it's just fractures of Henry VIII's life as he's laying on his deathbed, but it all comes out disjointed and uneven. They didn't even cover Anne Boleyn's execution! I'm no Anne Boleyn fan, but even I'm wondering how they could skip that.
The only real shining star is Lynn Frederick as Catherine Howard. She's only got about 10 minutes of screentime (probably less) but she's on her game. Beautiful and young and foolish, she gives the first sympathetic and probably most realistic portrayal of Henry's 5th wife. She nearly stole the show, and would have if they'd given her more time.
Anne of Cleves was a sad attempt at comic relief and Katherine Parr was an afterthought. I would let this go, if the focus was really on Henry - but it wasn't really about him either. It was so disjointed and uneven that the final film makes very little sense. You have to know your Tudor history to even follow it, and even if you do, it's still a confusing film.
