Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by townsend (A) on November 28, 2008 at 19:38:43

In Reply to: RE: Queensland premiere of Australia posted by dave c on November 26, 2008 at 13:51:24

Wife, son and I went and saw it at the local movie theater Friday after Thanksgiving.

The good . . . beautiful Australian scenery, and the aborigines, esp. the grandfather, Jackman's right hand man, and the kid. Some of the horrors of the bombing of Darwin were well portrayed.

The bad . . . I'm sorry, but independently, all three of us expressed our disappointment in this movie. A mess of a movie. Worn out stereotypes of British city slicker woman and outback roughneck . . . these characters were cardboard cutouts. Digitized special effects of scenery were cheesy, detracting from this movie being taken seriously as a period piece, etc.

In a sense, this movie paralleled the disappointing Pearl Harbor, where the love story ruined what could have been the definitive movie on that chapter of history.

I still think it is worth seeing on the large screen, especially since movies from Australia are few and far between (I did enjoy Rabbit Proof Fence, Walkabout, and The Tracker . . . glad to see David Gulpilil back at work in cinema). Sorry to be so negative . . .