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Directed By
Baz Luhrmann
Written By:
Baz Luhrmann, Stuart Beattie
Cast:
Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Bruce Spence, John Jarratt, Jack Thompson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jacek Koman, Wah Yuen, Bill Hunter, Essie Davis, David Gulpilil, Barry Otto, Ray Barrett, Kerry Walker, Tony Barry, David Ngoombujarra, Arthur Dignam, Eddie Baroo, Nathin Butler, Nathin Butler, Matthew Whittet, Sandy Gore, Jamie Gulpilil, Sean Hall, Ursula Yovich, Lillian Crombie, Crusoe Kurddal
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Australia (2008)
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Movie Review by Thom
March 9th, 2009
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The Beast With Two Outbacks
Favorite Movie Quote: "Look at the beautiful kangaroos! *BANG*"
So... I saw Australia.
Australia makes a labored effort to be a modern-day Gone With the Wind - with emphasis on the labored part - complete with old-style titles, sprawling vistas, maudlin emotional moments, and epic running time. One knows that Australia is epic because it insists upon itself from the opening crawl straight on through the closing credits.
Australia's opening crawl sets the tone by stating that Australia was a "land of adventure and romance" and mentions something about 1941. The movie then starts in 1939 - being narrated by Nullah (Brandon Walters), he of the magic cow-powers - and promptly hops back in time a step further to show were the film's heroine, Lady Sarah Ashley (a positively Elmer's-Glue-white Nicole Kidman) came from before hopping a plane for our title country to force her husband - whom she assumes is diddling around - to sell his cattle station.
As it turns out, hubby is dead on Lady Ashley's (or "Miss Boss") arrival, having been murdered by nefariously evil ranchhand Fletcher (David Wenham, missing only a handle-bar moustache in which to twirl), a casualty in a cattle-war with monopoly-hopeful Leslie Carney (Bryan Brown). Prior to his death, Lord Ashley was kind enough to send the Drover, Drover, or Mr. Drover depending on your pleasure (Hugh Jackman; who, according to my sister, did not get naked enough), to pick her up at Darwin. What follows is a four act story that involves a cattle drive, a rather superfluous flip of the reset button in the third act, and a stale, anticlimactic climax.
In trying to be an old-style epic salted with trashy romance novels, Australia's biggest success may be it's biggest failure; there's a reason filmmaking evolved away from that style of flick. The acting is mostly melodrama, there's little chemistry between the leads, the villain is ridiculously irredeemable, and what tension is created is only present because our protagonist does nothing to prevent things from getting too far out of hand. Also, it's more than a little weird that while Jackman calls Kidman "Sarah", she refers to him - throughout the entire flick, even after and one can assume while banging him - only as "Drover".
Another problem that I have - and Australia is not alone in this - is stories that occur in a time and place where villains do whatever they want to extreme limits, inform the protagonists one way or another of everything they've done, and then point out how hard it is to prove anything. Pop a cap in his ass! If it's such a wild region of the country where anything can happen, blow Fletcher's brains out and leave him for the dingoes. The alternative path, taken in this film by our Lady Ashley, is to do nothing as Fletcher threatens her loved ones and consolidates his power. Only by sheer chance - and maybe some mystical intervention - is disaster averted in the end.
If you have a chance to see this movie, just walk-about past it.
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 | Zara
Mar 9, 2009 8:10 PM
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| I have it in the queue as a "just because" selection. I've grown to hate Kidman over the years, but sometimes she's just in stuff that I like (THE GOLDEN COMPASS was one, as I found her to be inert as a character, even though she's supposed to be important). |
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Mar 9, 2009 8:36 PM