Australia

Baz creates another super enjoyable, visual spectacular! Although maybe not as good as "Romeo + Juliet" or "Moulin Rouge!" it certainly isn't much worse. "Australia" is a hugely enjoyable epic romantic adventure with plenty of exciting set pieces to keep you watching. I don't quite understand why nobody enjoys this? If Australia was made around the same time as "Gone With the Wind" I know that everybody would be drooling over it saying, "Oh it's the best film of all time!" Or whatever you call "Gone With the Wind" (I haven't seen it) because Baz has created a love-letter to those old epics and it's a welcome breath of fresh air to our screens.

At a hefty 3 hours long, I was expecting to find myself getting a bit bored along the way like parts in "Titanic" and even Peter Jackson's "King Kong" seemed to drag a wee bit at the start. However not once did I feel bored or restless during "Australia". This film isn't slow! It paces along beautifully, don't expect a high octane shoot-out because it's a romantic drama for God's sakes mammy! The screenplay (like all good epics) manages to make you laugh, manages to make you cry (no I didn't cry, but you might!) And it also manages to transport you on the journey with the characters. I found "Australia" absorbing and captivating.

The best part for me was the gorgeous cinematography. The whole film is magnificently shot, with some awe-inspiring scenery. Baz also shows off his incredible directing once again, one of the highlights being the exciting cattle herding across the desert. Baz injects that wonderful life into the film once again, as well as projecting a great story about a boy and his love for Nicole Kidman (no don't be silly!) And Hugh Jackman who sort of act as his surrogate parents. It's also about the love between Nicole And Hugh, although I think I would've liked to have seen better chemistry between them. It seemed like the hated each other at times when they were supposed to be madly in love! "Australia" also boasts a really evil villain! Almost on the same lines as Christoph Waltz in "Inglorious Basterds".

So with some great characters who we can care about, and also with some really exciting and beautifully shot scenes. "Australia" is another Baz masterpiece. It has all the ingredients for a superb epic romantic adventure. So why am I the only one who likes it?

An entertaining romantic drama by Buz Luhrmann, old-Hollywood style.

The movie is set in the Northern Territory of Australia in the years previous to the involvement of Japan in the WW II, and tells the story of Sarah Ashley -an English lady who goes to Australia to try to get her husband back to England and ends becoming the head of their Australian cattle farm-, Drover -an independent free-spirited cattle and horse drover that works for her- and Nullah -a half-caste Aboriginal child who lives in the farm and struggles to live in a world in which he's alien to both blacks and whites.

This is one of those movies that you can say it is done as the movies of the golden era of Hollywood used to be - flashy wonderfully well-looking movie stars, great scenery and great studio settings, detailed recreation of the era's fashion, decoration, atmosphere, etc., , and a simple epic plot with a great love story. Australia has all of this, but also a little bit of corn, a thin plot, weak characters and flaws that are even more noticeable in a super-production like this.

The script is uneven and Manichean (with angels and demons) and mixes several movie genres (romantic comedy, romantic drama, war movie, western movie, and Aboriginal movie) with different degrees of success. The characters are descriptive and without emotional depth, and that affects the acting. However, I loved the depiction of the magic and wisdom of Aboriginal Australians, which is really well presented, with its magic beliefs and philosophical and environmental approach to the world. I think that part is truly genuine and real and reaches the viewer. I also loved that Lady Ashley's character is the one of a true modern woman, as she is a strong-willed free woman, a boss, the boss of her man, a woman who always leads, never submissive or afraid of being alone if she doesn't get what she wants. That's a post-modern woman, so rare to see in cinema nowadays.

The acting is unconvincing on the part of the leading actors. Hugh Jackman's performance is just OK in his role, while Nicole Kidman disappoints in the comic part of the movie, as she seems not to relax when she does so, but she warms up to her usual self when the story becomes more dramatic; she looks beautiful in this movie, like a 50s movie star, although those inflated siliconed lips were a distraction... Jackman and Kidman make a great couple, but their chemistry on camera was nothing memorable and you see yourself seeing two actors playing a couple, not a real couple on screen.

Most supporting actors are good in their roles, especially the Aboriginal ones, who really shine in this film. David Gulpilil is simply terrific, completely believable and inspired in his role of the Aboriginal Elder King George. Brandon Walters, despite his youth, offers a memorable performance, and his face really lights up the screen. Also great is the actor who plays Drove's Aboriginal pal, who also offers a solid performance. They are the ones who really give soul to the movie.

Despite what you might expect, the cinematography is poor. I was expecting the rare beauty of the Northern Territory to be captured by the always stylish and colorful Luhrmann. However, the part of the movie that happens during the dry season is completely opaque and colorless, ugly to watch, while the scenes happening during the rainy season are again limited in colors.To my disenchantment, many of the most colorful and beautiful scenes are digitally created or enhanced, while others seem to have been shot in big studios. Just the Mission island seems to convey that luxurious real feeling of the NT vegetation. Some of the most beautiful bits of the real land, the aerial vistas, look like if they had been taken for a documentary for National Geographic. Where is the emotional connection of the story with the land? In other words, the viewer doesn't go beyond what the eyes see. So, one wonders, why the movie was called Australia and why it was sold as a movie that captured the spirit of this country. To be honest, I thought that most scenes in the movie could have been shot anywhere in the world not in Australia.

The movie is a little too long. Most of the first half an hour could have been removed , condensed or presented in another way to give the non-Aboriginal characters more emotional background and depth. For example, we barely know why Neil Fletcher wants so badly Sarah's farm, and why he's so wicked in general but he loves a lovable sweet good- hearted woman. He is just an archetypal bad-guy, period.

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the movie, especially the second hour and a half, and that heaven of a man that is Hugh Jackman. God Bless him and his holy body.

Australia came out between Christmas and New Year in the UK and this was quite befitting it as this is the time when the television usually has those fluffy but expensive specials and epic productions clogging it up, all with the excuse of being perfect "doze in front of the telly" stuff for the wake of eating too much. I say this fits Australia because in truth much of Baz Luhrmann's film could be accused of being just that – bloated, silly, sweeping, moving, engaging but ultimately quite light in the substance department. Our story is an traditional "epic" romance in the mould of many old films where the rough hero and the cut-glass woman fall for one another against a backdrop of cattle drives and war. If alarm bells are ringing for you then they were for me as well, since this concept reminded me a bit of Pearl Harbour – that terribly wooden affair that dragged on far too long to be able to cover the problems with big explosions.

The good news is that Australia is better than Pearl Harbour. The bad news is that it still isn't a fantastic film so much as it is the type of film that one likes despite it all, not because of it. The film wears its epic feel like a big coat and it covers it completely to the point that there is no denying the ambition of Luhrmann. We get massive spectacle, sweeping emotion, ethnic mysticism and constant unreal cinematography that makes the whole thing look gorgeous to the point of being unreal. In this regard the film works because there is a lot going on and, despite one's reservations, it feels like we are watching this epic film that is important and emotional and creative. The truth is perhaps a little less impressive because the mix of the epic and the fanciful doesn't come off for Luhrmann as well as it has in other films. Here one rather affects the other and the "big real story" sits uncomfortably with "unlikely sweeping narrative gestures" and "mystical power of the Aborigine". To some this will be just part of the magic of the film but for me it got a bit tiresome and felt like too much had been thrown into the pot.

That said, it somehow does work and generally I got caught up in the sweep and majesty of the whole thing – caring about the characters, touched by the slight magic in the story and the delivery. Although they don't mix that well, the camp style is woven into some aspects to prevent it becoming dry, unlikely and wooden in the way that it did in Pearl Harbour. The direction and cinematography drive this but the cast help. Jackman is not "great" in traditional terms but his beefy, chiselled frame plays well to the broad matinée idol type that he must deliver as. By contrast Kidman doesn't quite pull it off. Sure she is convincingly dry and uptight at the start but she doesn't loosen in a way that works that well. Walters is a bit too sickly cute for my liking but within the context of Luhrmann's world, he just about works even if he was a bit too front and centre within the film. Brown is a nice find in support and generally everyone is OK for what is required.

It is too long and it does have far too much in there for its own good but it just about works. I can understand why some hate it and some love it because it is that type of film but, for all its flaws (and it does have them), the big colourful, emotional sweep of it all is hard to resist. I'll admit that I would be unlikely to watch it again until it comes to TV for free in about 5 years but it has its charm and although it is not perfect I did think it was quite a good film and one that is typically Luhrmann in creation.

It seems just about right that Baz Luhrman waited seven years after "Moulin Rouge!" to bring us "Australia". Not because it is a better movie, but because it's very different and a lot more ambitious. Of course that this has a downside, and it's fair to say it as soon as possible: "Australia" is flawed and longer than it should be, and maybe (just maybe) one day it will be viewed as the dream come true of a man very much in love with cinema, and-let's not forget-with love.

We shouldn't forget that we're talking about Baz Luhrman, we should know what to expect sometimes. Therefore, if the beginning of this film disappoints you a bit, it's completely understandable. We meet a little boy named Nullah (the very promising Brandon Walters), who talks about races and unnamed countries, about a lady everyone calls Mrs. Boss and the road that got her to Australia and more specifically to a place called Faraway Downs in the company of a man they call the Drover.

Yes, it's all quite confusing, even more when Luhrman throws in a historical context that, I suspect, he doesn't really care much about. But everything is fine because we get to meet the stars of the show. Mrs. Boss is actually called Sarah and is played by Nicole Kidman with the same air and tone of voice she's been giving us the whole decade. Her job ends up being less risky than Hugh Jackman's, who plays this Drover as a successful combination of what he's been giving us since he came into the scene: the action hero, the tough guy, the romantic and sensitive lover and the sexy man who makes women scream.

Maybe I'm not being critical enough, but there's a scene in which the Drover appears dressed up in a suit, clean-shaven…I promise you that every women in the theater exhaled. Does this mean something to you? To me, it means that Luhrman's dream is a reality. Three hours of film and not getting tired one minute? Not feeling disgust when listening to cheesy phrases and watching excessively dramatic moments? "Australia" is pure melodrama, and I compliment its director for making it look that way without any shame. The keys can be seen all along the ride: the repetition of clichéd phrases, the intense close-ups, the slow-motion parts of the characters, the epic proportions of David Hirschfelder's score, the establishment of a song that accompanies the characters through their endless journey and the use of narration in places it didn't need to be; the same with some images.

However, the movie is one wonderful image after another (cinematographer Mandy Walker, from Australia-the country-; best of luck with the Oscar nomination you deserve), and it wins the audience like few movies out there these days can, providing delightful entertainment; you may discuss if it does this fairly, or if it cheats and it manipulates. You may also discuss the ambiguous ending.

One more thing. As with any dream, there's a moment in which we wake up; and that moment for Luhrman has to do with believing his picture could get to the race of Best Picture contenders, like his fantastic "Moulin Rouge!". But as I said, this movie is very different from the latter one, and Luhrman is no James Cameron…That one really had it the whole way.

Having resisted the urge to see Australia for many months, I finally hired the Blu Ray version because my mother in law was staying over for the night. I thought I'd get something suitable for an octogenarian lady who likes "nice" films with pretty people in them.

Well, it turned out she'd seen it, and anyway she and my wife were off to a show at 8pm, so I'd have to watch it all by myself (a one night rental, you see).

We have a home theater set up with high quality HD projection and a large 12 foot screen... perfect for expansive Blu Ray vistas. I thought I'd get at least some Academy Award nominated eye candy out of Australia, if nothing else. Not being a big Kidman or Jackman fan, I was hoping some of the supporting roles would hold my attention.

I was glad I could watch Australia alone, as it made my laughing out loud and the tears rolling down my face (sometimes simultaneously) less embarrassing.

This is a wonderful, sprawling, completely overdone, yet breathtakingly entertaining movie. I'm not interested in where it fits into the Baz Lurhmann body of work. I watched Australia for itself, as a one off experience... and the film delivers a cornucopia of cinema treats.

Be warned: to enjoy Australia you have to suspend disbelief. That is a given. Don't look for a sensitive, subtle, academic treatment of the plight of the Aboriginal Stolen Generations, redolent with citations, statistics and sober commentary. This film presents the situation crystallized around the story of one little boy, as a representative of the thousands who were removed from their mothers and fathers, destined for lives as domestic servants in white homes or as cheap workers on white cattle stations in the Northern Territory.

Likewise, the depiction of the mystical Aboriginal holy man is not meant to be taken literally. To my mind, the director's intent was to bypass stuffy academia and get to the soul of the Aboriginal person's ties to the land, which after all go back tens of thousands of years. There is no more magic in this movie than in any of the Indiana Jones movies, or Star Wars films, where the ability to rip out a beating human heart, magic stones that ensure prosperity, the Arc Of The Covenant as a force that can destroy armies, a mystical chalice which will impart immortality to those who drink from it, or The Force which enables levitation of large spacecraft and the manipulation of minds... all these are accepted by most filmgoers without demur. The same could be said of any of a thousand successful movies: the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, even Ghostbusters. They assume from the start that their viewers will willing to suspend disbelief. This film requires that too.

Once your disbelief is checked at the door, you can sit back and indulge yourself in Australia. It is a film about emotion, not a documentary. It's whether the emotional truth of the film, often melodramatically worn on the director's sleeve, can grab your own heart and allow you to wallow in it unashamadely.

Other reviewers have said here that they were able to watch the whole film with rapt attention from beginning to end. I join those ranks, and proudly. There is hardly a moment when the action - emotional or actual - is not hitting you right between the eyes, be it the stunning vistas or the awful badness of the baddies, the tender first kiss between the Drover and Lady Sarah, or the razor's edge existence of the young "creamie" boy, Nullah, always on the run from the well-meaning but misguided authorities who would "breed the Aboriginal out of him".

Sure, there are some CGI sections that at first seem way over the top, even comic book-like in their execution. But I'm not sure these weren't intentional. I wonder whether they were deliberately done they way they were to reinforce the magical and mystical thrust of the story? Yes, in Australia there are elements and style quotations from scores of previous movies. It pays homage to Indiana Jones (all four of them), Out Of Africa, Star Wars, any of the great westerns, The African Queen, Pearl Harbour (yes, Darwin really was bombed by the Japanese just after Pearl Harbour, with great loss of life), even The Wizard Of Oz. The latter was used as a metaphor for the boy's journey from grim reality to a mystical land full of evil characters, good fairies and magic animals. When he finally gets to see the movie itself, I'll guarantee even the most hardened eye in the audience will be struggling to hold back a tear.

The music was an eclectic collage of emotional cues, from the original score, thru the Hollywood musical and on to Elgar's Variations, with jazz, swing and bobbysoxer dance themes in between. Why not? The visuals and the sound reinforced each other, reaching not for footnotable, citable truth but for emotional truth (which is what all good films have ever done).

This was a great film, completely contrary to my preconceived notions of what it would be like to watch. It receives from me just about the greatest accolade I can offer any move: it's one I know I will watch over and over again, and get more out of with every viewing.