Snob Movie Review: Australia

This film opens today (November 26, 2008) and is directed by Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet), and stars Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and young Brandon Walters.

There is no doubt that this film is a labor of love for everyone evolved. The plot involves the WWII bombings in Northern Australia as well as the mistreatment of mixed children by the government. Mixed in there is a sweeping romance.

Kidman plays an English aristocrat that comes to Australia only to find her husband dead, and his ranch being run into the ground by a rival rancher. Jackman plays a cowboy that leads cattle across the country to be sold. Mixed into all of this is a bi-racial kid (Brandon Walters) that is torn between his Aboriginal grandfather's mysticism and Nicole Kidman's maternal modern love.

I could continue on with the plot, but that should give an indication of the convoluted mess that Australia is. The first 20 minutes of this film should have ended up on the cutting room floor. It has a bizzarro goofball tone that doesn't go anywhere, and Nicole Kidman has as much personality as the sponge in my sink.

The rest of the film is part romance, part war film and part comedy in the vein of Gone with the Wind. Unfortunately, that's where the comparison ends.

The script is uncompromisingly corny and downright ridiculous at moments. There is far too much CGI effects. It's not so much that we don't think it's real, it's more that I don't believe it. And of course, there's the whole White Saviour undertone.

A massive bloated missfire, Australia deserves more.