Australia. A big budget movie with lots of adventurous potential. It could have been a spectacular flick, but instead it turned out to be extremely mediocre. Why?
First of all the story really isn't that interesting. There is nothing new about a group of rookie ranchers who have to drive their cattle from one point to another.
In the lead role we have Nicola Kidman who is a great actress. No doubt about it. But we have already seen her in this role as an aristocratic woman from England, who has to set foot in a rough western like world. We saw that in Far & Away.
Hugh Jackman is the other Australian star in a leading role. He is really squeezed into an extremely boring character named Drover. This guy can't settle anywhere because he has a past influenced by death, war and lost love. Just a few minutes and you know how he will react to everything in the rest of the movie. He is kinda like a horse-loving Han Solo lost in the Australian outskirts.
Those were the two main characters, and then we have a complete stereotype bad guy Neil Fletcher (David Wenham). This villain is so evil that he gladly will see his own son dead, and he will do anything to advance in social status. And the lust for revenge is more than ever filling this character.
The characters add absolutely nothing new to cinema. They are so boring, and I am surprised that no more depth has been added to them. Director and writer Baz Luhrmann tries to compensate for this by adding several subplots to the main plot. Baz Luhrmann tries to wrap it all in as a criticism of the racial divided Australia during the years the movie takes place, but it really just seems like a bad excuse. The movie fails completely to get under the skin of that black chapter in Australian history.
We instead end up with a big budget movie that could have taken half of the time without any problems. The result would not have been worse, and they could have saved several millions of dollars on the budget of CGI. And much of the CGI isn't impressive anyway. The background often looks like a computer game, and that is a shame when Australia has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.
My conclusion is that this movie has nothing new to offer, and I just don't care a bit about the characters because they are so damn boring.
Overall: 5/10
First of all the story really isn't that interesting. There is nothing new about a group of rookie ranchers who have to drive their cattle from one point to another.
In the lead role we have Nicola Kidman who is a great actress. No doubt about it. But we have already seen her in this role as an aristocratic woman from England, who has to set foot in a rough western like world. We saw that in Far & Away.
Hugh Jackman is the other Australian star in a leading role. He is really squeezed into an extremely boring character named Drover. This guy can't settle anywhere because he has a past influenced by death, war and lost love. Just a few minutes and you know how he will react to everything in the rest of the movie. He is kinda like a horse-loving Han Solo lost in the Australian outskirts.
Those were the two main characters, and then we have a complete stereotype bad guy Neil Fletcher (David Wenham). This villain is so evil that he gladly will see his own son dead, and he will do anything to advance in social status. And the lust for revenge is more than ever filling this character.
The characters add absolutely nothing new to cinema. They are so boring, and I am surprised that no more depth has been added to them. Director and writer Baz Luhrmann tries to compensate for this by adding several subplots to the main plot. Baz Luhrmann tries to wrap it all in as a criticism of the racial divided Australia during the years the movie takes place, but it really just seems like a bad excuse. The movie fails completely to get under the skin of that black chapter in Australian history.
We instead end up with a big budget movie that could have taken half of the time without any problems. The result would not have been worse, and they could have saved several millions of dollars on the budget of CGI. And much of the CGI isn't impressive anyway. The background often looks like a computer game, and that is a shame when Australia has some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.
My conclusion is that this movie has nothing new to offer, and I just don't care a bit about the characters because they are so damn boring.
Overall: 5/10