Stoutonia

Issue date: 12/11/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: www.popculturebuzz.com

“Australia” is a nearly three-hour long sweeping epic taking place in the Outback of Australia during the early days of World War II.  It’s a love story that deals with social issues. It also is a historical film dramatizing the first attacks of the Japanese in Australia.

A.J.: Unfortunately, it fails on all fronts. It tries to be a drama, but a light-hearted one, that comes off as a live-action cartoon. Nicole Kidman, who plays Lady Sarah Ashley thinks she’s in a serious drama, while Hugh Jackman, who plays Drover, thinks he’s in a pseudo-comedy. Their styles clash terribly, and their love thread feels contrived and unmoving.

It’s hard to describe this movie. It started off with a “creamy” kid (this term will be explained later) narrating the opening scenes describing how the main characters came together on a cattle ranch on the Outback. Lady Ashley’s husband owned the ranch, but was murdered, and she came from England to take over to sell off the cattle. This was easier said than done because a ruthless cattle baron was in competition with her, and Drover reluctantly came to her rescue.

Another thread of this movie was that of the lives of the Aboriginies and their integration into the white culture.  It talked about the “lost generations,” or generations of mixed-race children. These children were referred to as “creamy” children, referring to their skin color (apparently they’ve never actually seen the color of cream), and they found themselves not belonging to any culture, white or black. These children were sent to live with missionaries to be taught religion and how to be proper white people.

“Australia” was several movies in one. It was a western, complete with a cattle drive, a commentary on racism, a World War II film and a romance. There was no clear reason for all these storylines, and they didn’t mesh. There wasn’t a clear point to the movie, either. It started as an anti-racism movie and ended as one, but during the middle two and a half hours, it was something less clear.

Unless you want to see a movie with Aboriginies creeping around in the background and standing in odd positions, an overly-enthusiastic child narrator, contrived acting, a portrayal of all white men being evil and all blacks and women being flawless, at least two complete movies in one and no theme tying all the threads together, this movie is a waste of time and money. It was boring half an hour in, and two and a half hours later it became mind-numbing.
This movie is best used as training on how not to make a movie, or as a torture device. Any movie that uses the line, “Never send a boy to do a man’s work,” without trying to be ironic, is going to be crap.

Katie: “Brokeback Mountain” meets the “Lion King” meets “Gone With The Wind” meets “Pearl Harbor”…but not as good. The movie was definitely an hour too long, or two and a half hours too long for that matter. It should have ended two hours in, when all the characters were happy and butts were still awake.

 It wasn’t all bad, though. The first half hour was rather entertaining and the cinematography/ Hugh Jackman gave the audience something nice to look at.
Rating: 0.4/10

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools