Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-04-27
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 158 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Watching the early reels of Australia, there's certainly no doubt who's in charge: this could only be a film by Baz Luhrmann, that wacky purveyor of all things over-the-top. In this old-fashioned, 165-minute hymn to his native continent, Luhrmann travels back to the late 1930s/early '40s, for a scenario that would not have been out of place at MGM in that era. Straightlaced Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) journeys Down Under and is put under the protection of--crikey--a rugged cattle driver known only as the Drover (Hugh Jackman). When the two are forced to team up (along with a motley crew of misfits) to take a herd of cattle through the hostile landscape, their way is challenged by the dastardly plans of the local beef baron (Bryan Brown) and his elaborately evil lieutenant (David Wenham). At some point you realize that this film's main commodity is not cattle, but corn: Luhrmann piles on the melodrama and the old-school climaxes with his usual frantic glee. Employing "When You Wish Upon a Star" and the Japanese air force to make his case is not beyond Luhrmann, and he reaches big here. Those with a taste for un-ironic silliness might just go for this stuff, but even fans of the Baz will have their patience tested by the broad comedy and the absence of discernable chemistry between Kidman and Jackman. Australia does manage to skewer the culture's prejudices against the Aboriginal people, but in this context such a victory comes across as rather tinny. --Robert Horton

Synopsis
Moulin Rouge's Baz Luhrman and Nicole Kidman reteam for this epic that pays homage to their homeland. In Australia, Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) is a prim and proper Englishwoman who journeys to Australia in the years before World War II reached the country's shores. She is determined to have her estranged husband sell his cattle ranch to a monopoly-craving businessman named King Carney (Bryan Brown), but when she arrives, Lord Ashley is dead, and her plan to sell the ranch changes when she sees an employee named Fletcher (David Wenham) cheating her husband's business and mistreating a young boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters) because he is of mixed race. Urged on by both pride and a sense of justice, Lady Ashley wants to drive her herd of cattle to Darwin so she can sell them to the troops, but she'll require the help of an independent cowboy (fellow Aussie Hugh Jackman) to get them there.


Australia changes genres almost as much as Kidman's character changes from fantastic costume to fantastic costume (courtesy of Luhrman's wife and collaborator, Catherine Martin). The film begins as a fish-out-of-water comedy, then changes into a Western, then morphs into a romance, and it finishes as a World War II drama. But in this genre-bending epic, there's something for everyone, especially for fans of Jackman. The actor has rarely looked better, and there's plenty of opportunity for him to show that he can be an action star as well as a romantic lead in the mould of the Golden Age stars. The film itself harks back to classic Hollywood, at times resembling essentials such as Gone With The Wind and The African Queen. And fans of The Wizard of Oz will enjoy seeing how the beloved film works its way into Australia's plot and score.

Customer Reviews

Good!
A surprisingly good film. Didn't quite know what it should be for the first hour or so, comedy? fantasy? silent movie spoof? But it gets better and settles down to an old fashioned romp, fun and easy to follow, just a litttttttle long but otherwise worth a watch.

Flawed but in fabulous in many ways
This is a far from perfect film; never sure what he wants to achieve, Luhrmann allows it to try and cover all bases from western to romance to action adventure to story of conscience. That said, if you're a fan of the Luhrmann vision you will love this film. It has all the stylistic and romantic elements of previous movies like Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet and Hugh Jackman in particular shows some genuine class as the Drover - who is a very typical Luhrmann hero; a man's man with a dream. I'm less convinced by Nicole Kidman (who I genuinely liked in Moulin Rouge) and there are times when the chemistry between the two is totally unconvincing. The story of Nullah the Aboriginal boy feels hackneyed and overly corny at times, a deliberate pull on the heart-strings, but again it's very typically Luhrmann and its very hard not to like Brandon Walters.

You have to want to like this film, you have to buy into Luhrmann's vision and you have to allow its flaws to pass you by. If you can you will find some absolute gems of style, direction and story-telling and above all an entertaining film that leaves you feeling as though you've seen a genuine modern-day epic

Beautiful old-hollywood epic
The reason this film got bad reviews was simple... people took it the wrong way. Some reviewers were saying that people were laughing in the cinema at the beginning, well so was I. Infact I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, because it's funny. It's INTENTIONALLY funny. Baz Luhrmann himself stated that he tried to put a bit of everything in this film including "high comedy" as well as high drama. If you've seen Baz's films before and loved them then you'll love this. Like Moulin Rouge, it begins humourously before taking you through a rollercoaster of emotions to moments of extreme sadness and tension. It looks beautiful and it's played beautifully by all of the actors. Basically this is Baz Luhrmann's nod to the old classics, it's reminiscant of "The African Queen" and "Gone With The Wind" and has obvious nods to "The Wizard of Oz". If you think they don't make films like they used to, this is highly recommended. Don't take it as fact, just let yourself enjoy it and you'll soon be swept along with the story.