Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Movie review: Australia

An epic mess.

By Shawn Parikh

“Oh crikey!” as Hugh Jackman’s character says over and over. Little did he know, he was mirroring what the viewers were feeling over and over. With a 3-hour duration, Baz Luhrmann has insufficiently blended 4 different genres: romance, western, a war flick, and a race history lesson. Oh crikey! This is what plagues Australia: it is trying too hard to be a sweeping epic.

Also, when seeing a Luhrmann flick, you expect some great style and a new way to tell a story. The visuals are stunning, but they don’t really have that Baz-ness. It is missing that element of fantasy that we got in Moulin Rouge!, Romeo & Juliet, and even the Chanel ad he did a few years back with Kidman.

So here is the convoluted plot: The story opens up on a half-caste aboriginal boy, Nullah, who tells the story from his POV. We meet Lady Ashley (Nicole Kidman) who has come to Darwin, Australia from England in search of her husband whom she thinks is sleeping with all the aboriginal women. When she arrives, she is guided around by a “Drover” (Hugh Jackman) who leads her to the cattle ranch where her husband is doing business only to find him murdered. Drover and Ashley decide to save the ranch and herd their own cattle, competing with Carney monopoly. Throughout this, the chemistry between them grows as does their love for the little mixed-blooded boy, Nullah. So this is the western part of the movie, which takes about 1.5 hours to complete.

Then, the next half begins having to deal with World War II, complemented by the racism towards the half-castes. Nullah, who is practically their son, must always hide from cops because mixed-bloods get sent to an island to be reformed. Nullah gets seized, so the second part of movie focuses on the family’s search for Nullah, with the Japanese invasion of Darwin as the background.

I must say Australia is fascinating in bits since it actually teaches the history of this “stolen generation” of aborigines, as well as the bombing of Australia during World War II. Plus, a few moments are very intense and edge-of-your-seat, especially the cattle stampede.

However, the movie’s multiple plotlines do not flow together well. Some of the plots, especially the journey of the cattle, are not that interesting. Also, even though the war is historical, it seems forced and just there to give the movie its “Hollywood ending.”

The guy who pops up every 10 minutes.

One more qualm is how the aboriginal storyline seemed more exploitative as the movie prolonged. Nullah’s grandfather, King George, was this withered, gray-bearded, loin-cloth-wearing man who was also a half-caste. Throughout the movie, he would just keep popping up in the middle of nowhere chanting, performing yoga positions, and somehow creating magic that would help Nullah. This whole concept seemed more like a stereotype than an actual person.

As far as performances go, everyone does adequate enough. Nothing groundbreaking from either of the two leads. Hugh Jackman as Drover is a perfect fit with his Aussie origin and dashing, heroic qualities. Nicole Kidman plays her part well as the prissy Lady Ashley in the beginning and is able to evoke some laughter. But the movie doesn’t really give her a chance to showcase her talent since the character is not as complex as those she wonderfully enacts. Brandon Walters plays little Nullah, and although cute, his speech pattern and inflection gets tiring. For all the antagonists, we must thank the director for making them two-dimensionally boring.

If elaborate period romances are your thing, then you may get a kick out of this. However, if 3 hours at a theater and a very Hollwoodized story is not your cuppa, you may want to avoid the Outback.

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