I am steeped in history at the moment. I saw - back-to-back with much trauma to my backside - Elizabeth, the Golden Age and Jodhaa Akbar. I am actually very surprised at the parallels between the two films and also how similar they were in opulence, pacing, historical "inaccuracies", level of authenticity of battle scenes etc.

In ElizabethTGH I expected Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Clive Owen to wow me completely with their acting. Did not happen - Cate and Geoff were excellent but Clive was like a fish out of water as the romancing Raleigh.

In JA I was expecting zilch from Aishwarya and she was better than that, nothing great, the expected silly walks, the shrill sad cries "hum Agra nahin jaayenge", but she did manage to more than fill the spot. I was expecting very little from Hritik after Dhoom 2 but he was way better than my expectations. He actually filled the shoes of Jalaluddin Akbar rather well, and but for the smirky or vacuous moments in the romance, he was quite good. There were several outstanding supporting performances, and some not so good ones. But for a film this size it all worked.

ElizabethTGA was sumptuous and lavish and extremely well done. But they did dress and undress the queen rather a lot for a short 114 minute run time. The setting was quite authentic.

In contrast JA was quite patchy in the settings - the red construction that was Agra was never shown in good focus, and actually looked like it was made of cardboard and paste. In contrast the insides of the Rajputana areas were real and well done. Princess Jodha was dressed and undressed but not that often and in fact was most often shown sleeping with all 10 kilograms of her jewelry on! Both movies had rather uneven pacing with bits that got your blood rushing from thundering dialogs and tense moments, and then there were bits where people sat around and sat around.

The historical inaccuracies were the most interesting - Raleigh rose up quickly in Elizabeth's court but there is no record of him participating in the war with the Spanish armada - in ElizabethTGA he is the prime mover and Drake a subsidiary figure. Similarly in JA - Jodhaa's very presence is in doubt, there is no evidence that Jalal actually loved her or pursued her in any way and he was historically married to others before he took a Rajput princess as wife. Is there any evidence that this alliance changed how he governed? I don;t think so.

That brings me to the battle scenes - in ElizabethTGA these were not well done at all. The water scenes were historically inaccurate, and poorly planned and executed. Elizabeth exhorting her army was actually a bit funny as the ranks seemed made up of only two rows of spears! In JA Ashutosh had manged to gather enough people and the battle formations were breathtaking in aerial view but kind of fell flat in actual battle. Gladiator this wasn't! The final hand to hand combat was well done but I am not sure it is historically backed up.

There were also many interesting parallels to Sivan's Asoka, but I will save that for a later discussion.

The music was beautiful going in but what about on screen? Jashne Bahara was chopped up as was Mann Mohana. In Lamhon ke Daaman mein was quite beautiful, Khwaja mere Khwaja was mesmerizingly well done. Azeemo Shaan Shahenshah was supposed to be profound but it turned into an over choreographed Lagaan type affair.

So in sum - Shekhar Kapur disappointed in ElizabethTGA because he introduces extraneous elements of the queen's attraction to Raleigh into his story and strays from history in the process. Doesn;t help with getting the eyeballs in to the theaters either. Ashutosh touched the heart with Swades and I was expecting so much from him. He does disappoint, but not as much as his film is attractive in a certain way and pitched as a love story, but oh can you imagine the possibilities if he had stuck to history? I will say one thing though - if you plan to watch JA at all, do it on a big screen or do not bother.