I only watched this movie because my wife likes historical costume drama's. The history of Mary Stuart was the subject I thought that would be interesting but the more I watched it the more I had the feeling this wasn't an accurate telling of facts. For example I really doubt there would be a Black lord or an Asian countess at that time in England. Add on that the rather boring repetitive story telling and you get just a mediocre movie. The main actresses Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie didn't do a bad job but the inaccuracy of the story just made Mary Queen Of Scots a movie I will forget everything about it in a week.

As already mentioned by many reviewers this "version" of Mary Stuart's story is so inaccurate as to be a sci-fi story taking place in a parallel, politically correct universe.

Contrary to the movie tagline, the plot bows to everybody: let's have a black foreign minister (sure, that so happened at the time) plus several mixed-race noblewomen, a bunch of black highlanders and an Hispanic, gay minstrel (eyes roll).

Not only that, but the Catholic Mary is unruffled by homosexuality, in fact she almost encourages it.... Because, as everybody knows, the Catholic church was totally OK with that... as long as the people followed their heart...

The tragic part is that many - among the least educated - will actually believe that this is a "true" story, or if it isn't, it should have been. But it could not possibly have been because the social and historical circumstances dictated that people lived in a different way - not necessarily because they were evil, but because that was what they considered right...

PS and Mary presented as a better woman than Elizabeth and a martyr, when she didn't achieve anything as a queen, apart from producing an heir and she was executed for her active participation in several plots to kill Elizabeth (this part conveniently skipped over)

Right...

I will never simply trash a film, I even tried to find some good in Carry on Emanuelle, but this....

It's trash, the trouble is I know this period of history, I studied it at A Level, I cannot recognise anything, characters, motivations, morals, politics.

It's a sixteenth century story, given a twenty first century slant, so expect zero accuracy. I'm sorry, but this time was governed by religion, not gender, it's shocking to even hint that Mary or Elizabeth would have had such a degree of tolerance, or had such a liberal look on the world. I'd class myself as someone pretty liberal, but please don't mess with history, it's there to teach us. There is a visible agenda.

It's not an entire write off, David Tennant as always is exquisite, it's hard to even recognise him initially, such is his performance. I didn't particularly care for any of the others, Queenie in Blackadder was perhaps a more accurate representation of Elizabeth, who had an iron will, you wouldn't know that from seeing this.

It's visually decadent, it looks amazing, great costumes, terrific sets, I'm not quite so sure that all men would have dressed in black, I don't think that's accurate. Relationships are forced, not explained nor developed.

There are snippets of accuracy, but they are fleeting, and lost in its desperation to be politically correct.

Do yourself a favour watch Glenda Jackson and Vanessa Redgrave, you'll see a superior adaptation, one amusingly that's almost fifty years older than this one.

You can put a mannequin in a designer dress, it's a lovely visual, but underneath it's still a mannequin, blank, without a heart or soul, that's how I feel about this film, it's a mannequin.

3/10.