Australia
Starring: Bryan Brown, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman
Details: Australia/US / 165mins (12A).
Although it's hard to care about Kidman's dilemma (her rich girl is too busy shooting lusty eyes at Jackman to grieve for her husband), those will they/wont they scenes with Jackman are a lot of fun with Jackman hamming it up no end. The homage to westerns of the 50s and 60s are enjoyable too: there are endless Death Valley-esque sweeping shots, Jackman's introduction is pure Eastwood, Kidman acts like she's a John Ford heroine, and the night scenes during the cattle drive have a deliberate sound stage look to them. All of this is fun, but then the fun stops and the problems start very early in the Michael Bay/Pearl Harbour 'second movie'.
Australia, plot wise, is over at this point but Luhrmann trundles on for no other reason than that's what an epic does. Although the director hopes that the stories gel, there's such a thick line dividing them it's as if the same cast are acting in an entirely different film. Boredom and itchy backsides take over, the humour disappears and there aren't any more feisty back-and-forths. Gone too are the grandiose shots. The clangy moments that were ignored in the first half become increasingly difficult to disregard in the second: David Wenham's once passable bad guy becomes too cartoonish to be taken seriously and the inclusion of the Asian cook is comic relief from yesteryear.
Review by Gavin Burke
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