Movie-Australia

Wow! We were both looking forward to this movie. I like epics, and she likes Hugh Jackman. A big budget blockbuster with two great leads about the land down under...how could it miss? But Australia (2008) missed so badly it made me say...wow!

It was hokey, first of all. I think it was trying to be Gone With the Wind. But if you made GWTW now, it could not be the same movie. It was of that time. And you can't re-create that artificially. But they tried with Australia. The story was hokey, and they had a beautiful country to work with and then gave us hokey animated backgrounds and sets, that were just bad special effects. So bad I wondered, "Are they doing this on purpose to try to give it an old-time feel?"

Hugh Jackman tries vainly to save the movie, using all his considerable charm and sex appeal to reel in female viewers. And, I am not afraid to say, he looks good. But that can only take you so far, because he cannot be in every single scene washing down his naked torso. It really might have been a better movie if they had tried that though.

Nicole Kidman wavered between almost stupidly comedic and just stupid for most of the movie. And there was little palpable romantic tension between her and Jackman.

It all seemed just make believe. The situations they were in, the way they related to one another, the sets and special effects...and I won't even get into the portrayal of the Aborigine people, which I was offended by. Ohhhhhh, they can do magic we civilized people don't understand....they can sing to animals and make them do what they want...Ohhhh. What rubbish. How about portraying them as a people that has a rich culture that we do not understand and respect THAT. No need to make them magic, almost fairy like.

Australia was a mess, and an almost 3 hour mess at that. If you get it and want to watch Jackman, just go to those scenes where he is washing himself in water, that should do it for ya. Replay it a few times. It'll be better than watching the whole thing. And then rent The Thornbirds for a better vision of Australia.