Australia Review

When the trailer for Australia first appeared online, no one was more excited than me to see a full scale epic romance set down under. Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman rarely fail at the movies their in, and this remains true for Australia. While they themselves are decent in the roles presented to them, the movie itself trips over its self in so many ways that it ruined what I had planned to be a unique experience.

The story is centered around Sarah Ashley (Kidman) who travels from upper class Britain to wild and untamed Australia to visit her husband who owns a cattle ranch. Upon the news of her husbands death Sarah immediately takes over the ranch in an attempt to compete with the other cattle industry leader Carney and win a contract with the army to supply them with meat. She hires Drover (Jackman) to drive the cattle to point A to point B and has many staff on hand including a young Aboriginal child who is a "mixed" boy meaning his father was white and mother black upon the movie is based on.

First we'll start off with the beautiful cinematography in the first part of the film. The sweeping shots of the outback really give you the feel of what Australia is like until they ruin that about 40 min in. Instead of using the actual scenery from the continent the film crew decided to go with a more modern look of CGI overviews of characters and CGI mountains for them to stand on and CGI backdrops behind them as they wrangle up the cattle. Use the actual mountains and scenery, not this fake looking and blatant computer crap that isn't even graphically decent.

If I had to pick the worst parts of Australia though it would be the script. One scene early on shows us via a newspaper that the 3 central characters have died. Let's see, I've seen only an hour of the film and already your trying to make us believe things that we know are OBVIOUSLY not true. Clearly you wouldn't kill them off otherwise where does the movie have to go afterwards? In a shocking turn of events, the 3 characters are alive. Also many lines are added that detail the cliche moments perfectly. "Just because it is doesn't mean it should be"...oh God. Critical moments in the movie, such as the near death of all Sarah's cattle, were straight out of the cliche handbook.

The movie also lingers for almost 3 hours. Trim off a weird subplot regarding the young boy Nullah and his grandfather and all the moments where nothing happens and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is playing and you could have a much better film. The Wizard of Oz references were overwhelming, tiresome and contribute nothing direct to the movie minus perhaps some metaphorical context.

The movie also has some terrible comedic moments that are as spastic on screen as they are with the audience. Some people laughed and others seemed confused as to how out of left field the comments were. If you see the movie for anything see it for Jackman, Kidman and Jack Thompson in a great villain role. With the little the actors are given to use, Kidman stands out despite her terrible lines. Australia isn't a movie I would recommend unless your a fan of Jackson with his shirt off, in which case the movie gets two thumbs up, otherwise Grade - D