Australia (2008)

Australia appears to be the critics next film of choice to outlandishly ridicule after handing James Bond and Quantum of Solace a barrage of harsh words and insults. First, Bond was too short and violent, now Australia is too long and boring, is there no satisfying those who seem to be bent on discovering flaws in everything? Or maybe the romance of a good story is lost upon an audience who pines for crude humor and comic book heroes.

Australia stars Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, an English aristocrat who travels to the land down under to recover her husband who she believes is up to no good. Traveling to a large cattle ranch in the middle of the Northern territory, which her husband had recently purchased, she discovers he's been murdered, presumably by a local aboriginal named King George. Now alone with a broken down ranch, 1,500 heads of cattle and thousands of acres of desert Sarah must decide whether to giveaway her land and cattle to her competition, King Carney of Carney Cattle Co, or attempt to drive the cattle thousands of miles to the port in Darwin where they can be sold to the army for a price that will help to bring her plot of land back to life and provide for her a healthy living.

Sarah decides to drive the cattle into Darwin with of the help of Drover (Hugh Jackman), mainly after learning of Carney's thievery of their cattle in the past. Short handed, Drover attempts to make cattle drivers out of Sarah and the rest of the ranch hands, but with all the odds against them and Carney's men doing everything they can to prevent them from reaching Darwin in time success seems bleak. Even if they're able to get the cattle to Darwin danger ultimately awaits them as the possible threat of a Japanese attack on Australia seem eminent. Along the way the character's must deal with the ongoing road blocks of a country stooped in greed, racism, and murder, but all their trials help them to discover a bit more about themselves and in the process helps them to become better people.

While Australia appears to be getting low marks from the critics and a few vocal viewers, popular sites such as IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office Mojo seem to be providing evidence to the contrary, as viewers actually seem to be giving the film pretty high scores. At a run-time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, Australia is no brief outing, but it's also no drawn out borefest. I wholeheartedly went into this film expecting the possibility that a near three hour run-time could possibly be brutal to sit through, only to find myself enjoying the film even more as the time went by, and loving it even more still after seeing it. It's a story that really deserves and requires all the time and attention that can be given to it, so much so that I cannot remember of a scene in the film that did not add something to the story and the overall ambiance of the film.

In terms of casting Australia stays true to it's name with an entire cast of Australian born actors. Nicole Kidman accepted her role prior to even reading the film's script, and is said to have encouraged Jackman to do the same. Though Jackman wasn't the first choice for the role of Drover, originally Health Ledger was offered the role which he turned down in order to accept the role of The Joker in The Dark Knight, and Russell Crowe was even attached to the role in pre-production until Fox attempted to cut his salary to accommodate for the film's already large budget. Ultimately I believe Jackman ended up being the right pick for this particular character, a role that's really not unlike some of his previous endeavors. While I'm a huge Russell Crowe fan I couldn't see him in this type of role, probably a good move on his part and possibly a bad move on the part of the studio who would probably be seeing better tickets sales with someone of Crowe's stature at the lead. As for Kidman, she does an acceptable job in her role as a well-to-do English woman in a foreign land, but I do believe someone such as Naomi Watts could have done more with the role, especially during some of the more emotional scenes in which Kidman seems prone to over acting.

Overall, I think Australia is the victim of over zealous critics who seem to be a lot louder in their criticism than the average movie viewer who actually appears to be giving it slightly above average ratings. Australia is by no means perfect, but it takes the genre of epic dramatic adventure films similar to Hidalgo and The Four Feathers and steps it up quite a few notches. While it's not going to appeal to everyone, I certainly found the story, the adventure, the romance and the overall magnitude of Australia well worth the time, and manner it's presented it.

8/10