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not as good as all the hype

just watch it!

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

This two disc mini-series is strangely proportioned. Part I, given to the displacement of Katherine of Aragon (Assumpta Serra) as Henry's queen, is dominated by Helen Bonham Carter as a tough-minded and wily Anne Boleyn (no sex before it comes with a crown, she makes clear). Henry (Ray Winstone) is putty in her hands, though her tartness of tongue as much as her inability to bear a male heir, eventually causes Henry to have her head chopped off. David Suchet as Cardinal Wolsey tries to persuade the Pope to annul Henry's marriage to Katherine and when he fails, Anne sees to it that he is driven from power. Part I also covers the establishment of the Church of England to ratify Henry's divorce and distance England precariously from Rome. By the end of Part I, Mary, Katherine's daughter, and Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn's daughter, have both been born but they are girls and therefore unimportant to their father.Part II is more condensed. The remaining four of Henry's queens are paraded quickly past the camera: Jane Seymour (Emilia Fox), who gives Henry his only legitimate son; Anne of Cleaves (Pia Girard) whom Henry sets aside immediately, finding her unattractive; Catherine Howard (Emily Blunt) a promiscuous teenage bride who loses her head for her activities outside the king's bed chamber,and Catherine Parr (Clare Holman), an attractive and wealthy widow whom Henry marries apparently for companionship and who survives him. Meanwhile, Henry swells in size before the viewer's eyes, and Mr. Winstone has ample opportunity to display Henry's violent temper. The mini-series does not compare at all well with the famous "Six Wives of Henry VIII" which devoted a separate episode to each of the queens, with "Anne of a Thousand Days" devoted entirely to Henry and Anne Boleyn or with a "Man for All Seasons," mainly about Sir Thomas More who has somehow disappeared entirely from history in this film.Nevertheless, the series is worth seeing, if only for Helena Bonham Carter's Anne and Ray Winstone's tempestuous Henry.

Although it is true that it was not 100% accurate, this was still well worth spending 4 hours watching, in face I felt it could have been longer. Ray Winstone played his part well and true he did his cockney gangster accent ( and at times his Richard Burton ) but his emotional range made him very believable. He did come across as ignorant and uneducated at times which is not what ( we are led to believe anyway ) was true of Henry. My main problem was that this could have been longer and some of the wives were hardly mentioned at all. Henena Bonham Carter was very convincing as Anne Boleyn Katherine Howard was at least portrayed as the teenager she was unlike many depictions in previous films. I guess it must be hard to get everything accurate in a 4 hour version of a very long life but it sure had it's dramatic moments. I think any film leaving you wishing there was more must be good.

The facts are XVIth Century but the style is clearly XXIst Century. It can be argued that everything in this miniseries really happened (except for a few fictional subplots) but it is unarguable that the end result is extremely vulgar, from the Cockney accent and body language of the king to the soap-opera techniques of the editing style. In this universe, a birth cannot happen without the camera projecting between the legs of the mother and blood spurting everywhere, courtesans cannot be disgraced without a Nazi style arrest followed by the cries of the tortured. History is a series of excuses for showing body fluids and not mentioning any important or relevant social issues other than sex and violence. It is entertainment for the readers of Rupert Murdoch's tabloids (Mr. Murdoch also owns Granada Television). It follows in the euro-trash tradition of revisionist history as spectacular blood-sport of such recent period films as "Elizabeth", "Le Roi Danse", "Vatel", "La Reine Margot", "L'Affaire du Collier", etc., etc., etc. Ad nauseam... It also made possible a piece of egregious dung like "Gunpowder, Treason & Plot" (2004).

There is no doubt whatsoever that the producers of this work have taken extreme liberties in the telling of the story, and employed a few outright falsehoods. Nevertheless, if one is able to leave behind expectations for a true-to-the-books account, it is a fun show to watch.Bad Things: Some of the costumes were not great, but there were also some that were spot-on for the period; the armour was atrocious, and the jousting pretty hokey (coming from someone who's done it before). And I certainly don't think Henry was as pliable and weak-willed as he is made out to be. The dissolution of the monasteries wasn't nearly so bloody and violent (another reviewer correctly described it as looking like a scene out of a viking rape-and-pillage film).Good Things: I think the acting was superb, especially from the supporting cast: Cranmer, Cromwell, Wolsey, Gardiner, Robert Aske. And speaking of Aske, for all the inaccuracies in the movie it is the only one that has given the Pilgrimage of Grace the incredibly significant role it actually played during Henry's reign; the details of the Pilgrimage are far too complicated to go into here, but even though much of the details were abbreviated or changed, the very fact that the producers gave a nod to this important event went a long way with me. Suffice to say that Henry's rule could have been swamped and swept away by the Pilgrimage, something Henry and his contemporaries were well aware of and was a consideration which guided their domestic policies for many years afterwards. The movie was limited by the length it could be to go into details concerning the 36-year reign of the monarch, and understandably had to 'pick its battles'. As such, it did leave a lot out about the religious crisis and split with Rome, as well as the effects of religious turmoil on the political situation at home and abroad. If they'd had another 4 hours, they could have covered more things to a greater extent, but most folks have trouble sitting through a ninety-minute movie.Overall, a worth watching but don't expect a history lesson. Besides, we need to worry about anyone who DOES expect a history lesson from a movie...