jaredpahl Australia is the kind of grand movie romance that defined classic Hollywood. It's got all the important ingredients: A pair of movie stars, exotic locales, and a heaping helping of melodrama. In the capable hands of Aussie director Baz Luhrmann, who knows a thing or two about movie love stories (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge), Australia had 'classic' written all over it. Maybe with expectations that high, Australia was bound to disappoint. In any case, Australia is certainly not all it can be.Much like Gone With the Wind, Titanic, or Out of Africa, Australia is a romantic epic that tells the story of an upperclass woman who falls for a dashing rogue. And that's not where the story similarities stop. Australia also takes place in a unique natural landscape and it's set against an important historical event. Australia is not just similar in story construction to these Hollywood classics, it is a direct variation on them. I don't hold that against Australia. The formula obviously works, and if you can put a worthwhile spin on it, I'm all in. Australia has a distinct Aussie flavor, and it's commentary on Australia's Stolen Generation is something we haven't seen in mainstream Hollywood. The cast is made up of just about every major Australian actor working, with welcome turns by David Wenham, Bill Hunter and Ray Barrett to highlight a few . Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman star, and they are exactly what they need to be. Kidman does her thing as the uptight English outsider, and Jackman was born to play the bushman with a heart of gold. There is almost nothing I can say against the structure of Australia. This exact story has been done before, and done very well.As much as I hate to it it, because I really like him as a filmmaker, Australia's problems start and end with Luhrmann. I suppose he must have had a ion for telling this story. He is Australian, and I'm sure he felt an obligation to do justice to the country's history, specifically the Stolen Generation, but you can't really see that ion on the screen. This is a sloppy piece of work. For starters, Luhrmann never quite finds the right tone for the story. The introductory scenes are kind of playful and more than a little humorous, but as the film moves along, the melodrama begins to take hold. It gives the film a jittery back and forth feeling, as if competing ideas of what type of movie this should be were all thrown in together, elbowing each other for space. The bigger blunder from Luhrmann is the look of the movie. The Australian Outback is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It doesn't take much to translate that beauty to the screen. And while there are, by sheer volume, plenty of breathtaking vistas on display in Australia, there are far too many ugly ones. Luhrmann relies heavily on sound stages and CGI backgrounds. Digital enhancement is, of course, not a dealbreaker in itself, but the CGI here is so bad, pervasive, and needless that it almost does spoil the rest of the film. There is absolutely no need for this much CGI in a romantic Hollywood epic, especially CGI that looks like a PlayStation 2 game. There is a long, pivotal, cattle driving scene in the middle of the film, and I didn't believe that environment for one second. This is a production that is calling out for old-fashioned filmmaking, and Luhrmann it seems, doesn't have that in him. At least not fully. He tries to have his cake and eat it too when it comes to balancing the art-house elements he's famous for and the traditional elements the material calls for. The result is a movie that is not artsy enough to separate itself from its obvious inspirations, And not traditional enough to stand alongside them.This is a movie stuck in, well, No Man's Land. Luhrmann wants Australia to be a grounded drama about Australian history but he also wants a magic realism tale about an aboriginal twilight. It is not impossible to do both, but Luhrmann only gives half his attention to each. I'm being hard on Australia only because I know it could have been great. The final product is not a bad movie. There is a surplus of ambition and conviction in both leading actors, Kidman and Jackman, and in Luhrmann as the director. This is a solid tale with enough irable craftsmanship to get a from me, but given its potential, Australia is a major disappointment.64/100
valleycapfan I saw this move over seven years ago when it came out and I still haven't seen a movie as bad since. Prepare to dodge the clichés that are fired out of this movie faster than a machine gun. The characters are wooden (the good guys are VERY good, the bad guys are VERY bad, and nothing in between), the plot is straight out of a Harlequin Romance novel, the script is riddled with lines that garner unintended laughs, and the direction is unbearable.Having endured nearly three hours of this disaster, I fully expected to see Michael Bay and/or Jerry Bruckheimer in the credits, as it had all the earmarks of their work but, to my surprise, even THEY wouldn't have anything to do with a movie this simple-minded. I couldn't help immediately comparing this to "Pearl Harbor." Both movies have so much in common - all for the wrong reasons - and, in both, the audience is hoping a Japanese bomb or two takes out the lead actors. It would've helped their careers.Only one notable quote spoken in this movie kept it from getting a "1" score in my eyes: "It wouldn't be a war if someone wasn't making money." That was the highlight of a film that all respectable Aussies should disown outright.
Python Hyena Australia (2008): Dir: Baz Luhrmann / Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson: Well crafted yet overlong bore that never establishes the joys of the Outback. After her husband is murdered Lady Sarah Ashley travels to Australia to sell his ranch thus also transporting herds of cattle. Starts out well but contains like fifty different endings. And why not more shots of wildlife? They only have like fifty million of the most dangerous snakes in the world living there. How about a glimpse, please. Director Baz Luhrmann delivers fantastic war footage and battle scenes but this is not up there with his work in Moulin Rouge or Romeo and Juliet. Nicole Kidman holds strong as Lady Ashley who ends up in an odyssey that was not on the visitation list of things to do. Hugh Jackman on the other hand, seems more like a romantic prop regardless of how much he puts his neck out for this broad. David Wenham plays the villain Fletcher but the role is fairly straight forward and boring. Bryan Brown appears in a cameo. Being set in Australia, one could only wish that it highlighted the wildlife a tad more exclusively since the screenplay is dull. Was Luhrmann attempting to make a sort of Australian version of Gone With the Wind? If so then it doesn't pay off very well. It is all over the place and never fully focused thus losing its message. Score: 5 / 10
vailsy With the title 'Australia', you might expect to see a movie where this wonderful country and landscapes take centre stage. Perhaps a serious and historic movie. Unfortunately from the get-go 'Australia' tries to be awkwardly comedic, like it wants to be Indiana Jones or Blazing SaddlesThe title 'Australian Vacation' would've been more appropriate, with a cameo from Chevy Chase Both Kidman and Jackman are truly awful in this comedic setting. Being Australian themselves you would hope they would know better than to read the script and then still decide to audition for and star in this misadventure The Aboriginal actors are about as unlike regular Aboriginals as you could imagine. The kid narrates the story likes some kind of fairy tale Given that it's basically a comedy, it is ridiculously long at nearly 3 hours Overall this film is a total misfire
