A big, unabashedly boisterous romance epic where director Baz Luhrmann tries to embrace all of the grandiose melodrama of pic's like 'Gone with the End', 'The African Queen' and 'Mogambo.' You can't complain of the stunning outback vista's, but for all the flash, the pic is decidedly detached.
Despite a bumpy trip, I'm still surprised audiences didn't respond to its lofty, eager aspirations to please this past Fall when it barely eked out a 50mill theatrical gross compared to the eye-popping 150 million budget.
I guess movie-going audiences can be discerning after all (wait, no, I take that back, 'Paul Blart' will shamefully end up making more than 'Watchmen'...).
A lot doesn't work, particularly the first fifteen minutes which are almost jaw-droppingly bad, but the film does eventually find it's footing - good thing too as it runs 165 minutes. It eventually finds a steady, kind-of enjoyable tone, if never as good as 'Red Curtain Trilogy: Strictly Ballroom', 'William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet' and Moulin Rough' director Baz Luhrmann wants it to be.
The film's major saving grace is the casting of Brandon Walters as "half-caste" Nullah, a white/aborigine who provides the narration and drives the plot. Walters is an extraordinary little actor and had the film had to survive on Kidman's curiously lacking acting prowess in this particular case, 'Australia' would have been nigh unwatchable.
I will say that having the Blu-ray of this pic will go to great lengths to make up for some of the film’s many shortcomings as the wide, open spaces of the Australian outback (where Luhrmann packed up everybody to film and explains part of the extreme budget) look wonderful. Almost makes me want to go on a walkabout...almost.
The first fifteen minutes gets off to a rough start, with a frenzied exposition that wouldn't be out of place in 'Moulin Rouge'. Prim and uptight English Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman, carrying over her bad 'Lady' tics from her role in 'Far and Away') arrives in Australia in September 1939 to follow up on her husband's presumed affair.
Her arrival in Darwin perfectly coincides with the Drover (Hugh Jackman) getting himself into a barroom brawl, a brawl taken into the streets with the crutch being the use of Ashley's lingerie luggage.
To the delight of the surrounding townsfolk, Ashley gathers up her lingerie and so is the less than ideal intro to the wild and wooly Drover, who was there to escort Sarah to her husband's remote North Territory ranch, Faraway Downs.
Finding her husband dead, the story gets started proper when Ashley refuses to stand down to the mustache-twirling villains King Carney (Bryan Brown) and Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) who wants her ranch.
The only way to keep her ranch is to drive 1,500 head of cattle to the Darwin port for the military to purchase which puts here in direct competition to King Carney. Gaining the help of a motley crew - headed by the had to be convinced Drover - consisting of her Aboriginal housemaid Bandy (Lillian Crombie), young Nullah, who Ashley protects from being taken away by officials who detain "half-castes" and ship them to Mission Island, Chinese cook Sing Song (Yuen Wah), a drunken accountant Kipling Flynn (Jack Thompson) and Drover's best mate, the Aborigine Magarri (David Ngoombujarra).
This sets off a second-act with a stampede action sequence so reliant on CGI, it could just have easily fallen out of Peter Jackson's 'King Kong'. The second-act closes on the success of the drive but the failure of the relationship of Ashley and Drover who discovered romance along the way.
Ashley, wanting to adapt Nullah, scares the Drover away and the climax finds the two going their separate ways as the Japanese bomb Darwin (two months after Pearl Harbor).
This results in a CGI-heavy war-swept climax where Nullah, captured and shipped to Mission Island, has to hope for rescue from the Drover who stages a nighttime attempt to herd the kids off the Island which found no refuge from the steady stream of Japanese bombs.
These scenes are a bit convoluted but the eventual questions of if and how the Drover, Nullah and Lady Ashley reunite are handled well enough and the final moments actually find some right tones that the rest of the film struggled to attain.
There's no denying the craftsmanship of the film with outstanding outdoor photography from Aussie Mandy Walker with 'Australia' marking her first big pic after smaller gems like 'Lantana' and 'Shattered Glass' and that's where most of my recommendation would be aimed, if I was to make one. If you accept the film as a sensory experience, it's definitely worth picking up in high-def.
The casting, with the exception of young Brandon Walters, is mostly across-the-board troubling with direction no doubt calling for exaggeration which leaves Kidman flailing around wildly with some reaction shots that come off as strictly amateur hour within the context of a major motion picture.
Jackman fares a little better but still doesn't generate much machismo or charisma, particularly when thinking of what might have been with Russell Crowe in the part who backed out at the last minute due to salary squabbles with Fox.
It also has one of the most heavy-handed, ineffective scores I've heard yet in a film like this, which is key for this genre. With such embellished actions on-screen, the last thing needed in the film is a heavy-pounding punctuation of music. All other tech credits, production and costume design, though are top notch.
The coup-de-grace of the package is the outstanding 1080p AVC 2.35:1 encode which handles all 165 minutes magnificently. With the exception of a few spotty CGI moments, the film is a visual treat with the Queensland vistas being quite the high-def showcase. Detail, color and contrast are all rock solid so even if you're rolling your eyes throughout the film, you'll still want to stick through it just to revel in 1080p.
The DTS-HD Master Audio track is also a winner if comparatively more tame. With stampedes, war-time explosions, brawls, etc., there's never a shortage of ear-candy to enjoy but this also means that the obnoxious score is crystal-clear.
Maybe due to its disappointing theatrical run, but special features are surprisingly light. We get 'Australia: The People, The Scenes, The Location', a short seven-minute making-of with the expected behind-the-scenes footage and interviews.
More meaty is a series of 'Behind the Scenes Featurettes' which were originally podcasts on iTunes that run a combined 50 minutes or so and approach a different aspect of the film: 'Photography', 'Production Design', 'Costume Design', 'Locations', 'Cinematography', Sound' and 'Editing'. Finishing things off are a couple deleted scenes and some trailers.
This is a toughie as I enjoyed several aspects of the film but found that I was firmly annoyed by the overall tone and the approach of the white cast. It's not a good film, but you can't say that Luhrmann's didn't shoot for the stars on this one. I guess that alone is commendable. The Blu-ray itself looks and sounds fantastic so with that in mind, if you don't mind Luhrmann's over-the-top style, this comes as a mild recommend for the curious and high-def junkies.
Australia [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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