Australia

Kitschy silliness that for two and a half hours smothers smart viewers in digital cattle, while pulling the more sensitive viewers by the nose with a stupid love story between an English lady and an Australian cowboy. Jackman is alright, Kidman is too vague at times, but the fundamental problem is, of course, the script. If told you that the twists are all predictable half an hour before they happen, I’d be lying, they are predictable already from the trailer, even before the film begins. Think about the most clichéd romance you can imagine, set it in Australia during WWII, add some bollocks about the importance of the art of storytelling (this is how ridiculous this movie sounds!) and you have Australia. (19/05/2009)

A fairy tale about how a dog and a cat cooked up a movie. After regularly encountering the immeasurable power of passion in Into the Beat and after some time away from Moulin Rouge!, which I eventually accepted, I was expecting a lot from Australia. However, the result is... something I'm willing to close both eyes to just for the prosaic fact that Nicole looks immeasurably great after 1939. Which isn't much, but also not too little for moving pictures. (23/07/2011)

A horrifying wannabe innovative mix of comedy and classic epic storytelling style. Luhrmann's obvious attempt to come up with something new, a new concept of an epic story, is shocking. At times, Australia appears to be an amateurish blend in terms of its plot, and without the beautiful scenery and captivating actors, it would be a complete horror. Two strong storylines clashing with each other, a ton of digital effects, an introductory half-hour of comedy, bad war sequences, and a final epic cliché. Once was enough for me. Luhrmann is an amateur who should watch Cold Mountain every other day. (28/02/2009)

Australia is a theatrical, affected overly sweet monstrosity that decides anew what it is about every half an hour. In order to hold itself together, it relies on the relationship of the central couple, which is, however, drier than Australian desert. I haven’t suffered like this in a theater for a long time and I can’t believe that this suffering was brought by the same Baz Luhrmann whose beautiful, emotional and complex Moulin Rouge! I love with all my heart. I’m giving this the second star only for the poetic story line with the little Aboriginal boy and the only really nice scene in the film, which is connected to him (stopping the cattle just before the abyss). Australia deserved its fate as a box-office bomb. (09/01/2009)

In the first half, Luhrmann tells the story with gusto, passionately and fully applying his almost grotesque sense of humour (which I like and which his previous film, Moulin Rouge, was packed with), but when he arrives in Darwin midway through the film, he seems to wave a magic wand, and the narrative, full of life and the enchanting atmosphere of the Australian outback, becomes a game of playing with the audience's patience, where it's as if the filmmakers are trying to see what clichés and screenwriting gimmicks they can get away with. That cheesy ending is something that not even Danielle Steele, the queen of rosy books, would dare write. Still, I sense Luhrmann's sincere effort to pay homage to his beloved native Australia throughout the work, and so I can't entirely damn it. (08/03/2009)