Cate Blanchett’s performance as Queen Elizabeth I made her name, earning her an Oscar nomination. Now, almost a decade later, the Australian actress has returned to the role of the charismatic monarch in a sequel that is being tipped for several awards.

Elizabeth, which appeared in 1998, was the first English-language feature by Shekhar Kapur, the Indian film-maker. At the Oscars, Blanchett lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love, but now she is receiving critical acclaim again as an older and wiser monarch in Elizabeth: the Golden Age, the second of a possible three-part historical romance about the Virgin Queen.

It is the latest project from Working Title, the makers of Four Weddings and a Funeral and the Bridget Jones films, and received its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival this week. The Hollywood Reporter said that “Blanchett has lost none of the brio that earned her an Oscar nomination”, and Screen International described her performance as “truly majestic”, suggesting that the Academy might wish to make amends for not giving her the Oscar ten years ago.

Critics were more divided over the film itself. Variety said that “without the pleasure of watching Cate Blanchett . . . there would be little to recommend this latest of many cinematic and television accounts of the celebrated monarch’s life”, but The Hollywood Reporter said that Kapur had not “toned down any of the energetic camera moves, pageantry or vivid colors” seen in the original . Screen International applauded it as “a sequel and an equal”, likening its photography to paintings from the period, with dark, treacly interiors illuminated by the glow of candle flames or the play of sunlight on glass.

Elizabeth: the Golden Age starts about ten years after Elizabeth ended, and sees the redheaded queen facing familial betrayal, criticism over her failure to produce an heir and an open challenge of her rule by the figurehead of European Catholicism, Philip II of Spain. As in the first film Sir Francis Walsingham, the wily spymaster, is played by Geoffrey Rush.

Walsingham uncovers an assassination plot against the Queen and realises that her betrayers may include her own cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, played by Samantha Morton. Rush said of the plot: “I don’t know how historically accurate that is, but it certainly provided a dramatic catalyst.”

Although playing Elizabeth I had a big impact on Blanchett’s life, she has refused to be drawn on whether she would play the role for a third time to complete Kapur’s vision of a trilogy on the life of the Queen.

“I’m not sure Cate is going to say yes to it,” the director said.

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