Australia is a big country with skies and deserts that go on forever. The film of the same name is a big pile of cinematic excrement that should not have even started, let alone been allowed to go on for as long as it does. Baz Luhrmann, possibly the most overrated director in the world, was given $180 million to create this overwrought, schmaltzy garbage starring ice queen Nicole Kidman and bland-as-batsh*t Hugh Jackman. Fancying himself as the reborn David Lean, he went for epic and got Epic Stinker. He throws in the Australian government's disgraceful treatment of its indigenous people, a romance, a cattle drive, the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese, and a subplot involving a little boy with parents of both colors. The result is a mess. The CGI of cattle racing towards their doom is completely unconvincing and the bombing of Darwin, which can only be described as 'Pearl Harbor Lite', is directed with spastic indecision. As a romance, it's a complete failure. As history, it's totally shallow. As social commentary, it's all surface. If Luhrmann is doing anything as a filmmaker (in addition to running his career with one ballet shoe firmly in the closet), he's channeling the spirit of the late, great Liberace with his over-the-top bonanzas of glitter, camp and intolerable clichés. Unlike Liberace, he doesn't know when to stop playing. "Australia", by any measure, is a massive helping of Terrible that would make even dear old Liberace nauseous.
Review of Australia
