Here is something that sounds fun: a big budget, old fashioned Hollywood epic, with wonderful vistas, appealing stars and a passionate dedication to excitement and grandeur. That is not something you get in Baz Luhrman's Australia. On the other hand, if you were biting your nails to see an expose of the 1930's Australian cattle industry, have I got a movie for you!
Yes, I'm exaggerating, but just a little. The first half of this film is devoted to the breathtakingly exciting subject of whether a Australian cattle barron will get a monopoly over all the beef in the land down under, and believe me, this is not There Will Be Blood with hamburgers. The second half manages to make a subject that is inherently interesting (World War II) boring, using every cliché in the book and sucking any kind of original thought and passion out of the project. Way to go, Baz.
If the tone of this review is obnoxious, I must admit that I am not sure that I am not I can convey in words out utterly boring this movie is and how I desperately wanted it to end. At one point it looked it was going to, but went on for at least another hour, and then had two false endings on top of that. It's as if they were trying to deny me the blessed relief of getting the movie over with, so I could leave the theatre and complain to people about how damn long it was.
How exactly does the movie go wrong, aside from a premise that nobody cares about and a length that few directors should even consider reaching? It's built around a love story between an actress who has an intensely charming screen personality (Nichole Kidman) who is contrasted with a rather bland actor known mostly for his hunkiness (Hugh Jackman). The scenes with the two together do not give Omar Shariff and Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago a run for their money. Jackman is so inferior to Kidman as a movie star that it's kind of embarrassing for him. It's not that he's is a bad actor (which he isn't) but Jackman has no screen presence and is all wrong in part like this that require intense charisma.
The other problem is that a massive amount of screen time is wasted on a racist subplot involving a young Aboriginal boy (Brandon Walters) and his grandfather (played by one of the world's greatest actors, David Gulpilil). I am neither Australian nor Aborigine, but I found the portrayal of the minorities in the film insulting. The Magical Negro stereotype (yes, I know that Aboriginals are not of African ancestry, I'm just using the most common phrase for this type of portrayal) is a dreaded way for white to show they are not racist to minorities by endowing them saintly or spiritual powers. Gulpilil plays essentially a wizard in this film, with about zero character development. And I don't need to mention that this is the nine millionth film that pretends to deal with racial issues but casts white leads.
Usually, annoyance on this level from me indicates a film I really hated or even found offensive in some way, but here its out sheer boredom. At two hours, Australia would be merely dull in an ordinary kind of way, but at three, it seems so pointless and such a waste of time and money that it's nearly unwatchable.