Australia

"Every continent should have its blockbuster," said likely director Baz Luhrmann and made the film "Australia," which is a patriotic film, but shows the dark sides that Australia had to go through in the 20th century. After the first few minutes, the viewer is unsure of what they are actually watching. Is this supposed to be a comedy, which tries to showcase the two big Australian stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in beautiful shots? Or should we take the film seriously and expect that there will be a little more to it in the end, and that we can look forward to some drama that will really move our emotions? In the end, it turns out to be a drama that wants to be grand, but actually remains somewhat small. It still focuses on the main actors and how good they look, especially Hugh Jackman, which raises the question of whether Luhrmann might be gay. He is not, at least as far as I can judge from the fact that he is married to a woman. The story of the little boy, which the film is actually about, is not as touching as it was supposed to be, and therefore - but not only for that reason - the film did not gain much favor with me, because on a runtime of almost three hours, it is not that exceptional. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/05/noc-patri-nam-voda-pro-slony-posledni.html (18/02/2013)

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)

It begins like an unfunny, madcap comedy (all praise to those kangaroos), then it suddenly turns into rather a good adventure fantasy movie about hunters with magic and a nice amount of tongue in cheek, but then subsequently flops over into a remake of Pearl Harbor. Just even stupider and deadly serious into the bargain. At the end it becomes a politically correct appeal with at least seventeen ending acts. The cherry on the cake is the finale “gets out of boat and rifle shot" which easily wins the prize for sky-high dumbness in the movie theaters this year. Of course, you shed some tears while watching it, which certainly was the filmmakers’ aim, but I’m not so sure that they were meant to be tears of laughter. It’s all in a visual guise which, unlike Moulin Rouge!, doesn’t balance playfully on the line between kitsch and genius, but becomes puke-worthy digital kitsch of the third kind. The characters (not the actors - they do their very best to save things) are a parody of themselves, because for instance every ten minutes Sarah turns into a different character, thinking, acting and behaving completely differently to before. A movie about strength and the need to tell a story that doesn’t have a clue about how to tell a story is bound to fail. And it does. (18/12/2008)

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)

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)