Australia

I love epics, they've always made me escape to another place called the movie screen, huger than life in all its glory. In Baz Luhrmann's Australia, I wanted to escape from the theater after the film's first half, as within two hours it felt like the movie was over, and Australia: the sequel was about to begin. Epics are supposed to be long, right? But when both the script and the leading characters lack substance, nothing is left but an overdose of stunning images, mainly in slow motion with an impressive music behind. Paying homage to classic Hollywood epics was a sweet idea, but instead of creating a Gone with the wind esque film in its core, the director mainly delivered one cliche after another. Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) ain't Scarlett O'Hara and Drover (Hugh Jackman) ain't... Clint Eastwood. Epics are usually influenced by a variety of genres, but Australia is very peculiar in this aspect. Nicole's character is firstly an affected version of Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, I could almost picture her saying "I had a farm in Darwin in the middle of nowhere", while wearing designer gloves and hats. Suddenly she becomes a widow and puts on some dirty pants so a western begins, but after the cows are gone, bombs and evil japanese soldiers come to start a world war 2 film. Lady Ashley goes through all that and still finds time for falling deeply in love, defying her time's morality code and "adopting" an aboriginal child. Everything is very predictable, cheesy, and have I already mentioned that it lacks substance?

Australia (Australia, USA, 2008) Directed by Baz Luhrmann. Starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Brandon Walters.