Australia the Movie with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman

Baz Luhrman is one of my favorite directors. I love his work. His newest work; however, isn't quite up to par with the rest of his work. Australia seems to me to be two movies merged into one. The first movie was a solid western about beating a meat tycoon at his own game and the second film was a short WWII film about the Japanese attacking the Australians. Tossed in for good measure is a romance and a commentary about how mix heritage children were mistreated during this time period. It is a good film a bit long, but decent watch. It had good cinematography, lovely visuals, and good acting.

Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is a proper English lady with a problem. Her husband has bought a ranch in Australia and is raising cattle. It is losing money but he refuses to sale the ranch and come home to England. Sarah, being a quite in command lady, goes over to Australia to retrieve him only to find that he has been recently killed. She is left with a dying ranch and a herd of cattle that she can't move herself. She also finds out that her overseer has been stealing from her and giving her best cattle to the cow tycoon Carney (Bryan Brown). She decides not to let them beat her and hires Drover (Hugh Jackman) to help her move the cattle to Darwin. There she can sell them to the army, and make enough money to get the ranch running again. Only Carney doesn't want her to get there, and sends his men to make sure she doesn't make it. (see typical western)

In the second half of the movie, the romance between Sarah and Drover grows as they raise a mixed heritage child, Nullah, whose mother has died in a previous scene. Drover wants the child to be able to take a walk-about with his grandfather while Sarah wants him to be educated. The child disappears and Sarah wants Drover to come help her find him instead of going on a Drove (cattle/horse drive) for the government. Drover (thinking that Nullah is with his grandfather) leaves for the job instead and Sarah tells him to not come back. Sarah goes to Darwin (which is a port city) to find Nullah (Brandon Walters) because at the time mix heritage children were taken away from their families and taken to a mission on an island outside of Australia. While these stories are playing out, the WW has come to Australia, so that end of the film wraps up the love story and introduces the Japanese bombing of Darwin and of Mission Island, the home of the children. Will Sarah get Nullah back? And will she and Drover live happily ever after? You will have to see the movie to find out.

While the story line was a bit confused and long, the movie did have some things going for it, like good cinematography and acting.

Baz Luhrman is a fan of visuals (see Moulin Rouge). Therefore, there are some beautiful cinematic shots in this film. There were some scenes that were absolutely stunning and perfectly laid out. I was actually struck by the beauty of some scenes in the midst of the film. The war effects were great too; there were some great explosions.

The acting was great. Nicole Kidman was perfect as the seemingly uptight proper English Lady that is somewhat relaxed by the outback. I thought she sounded perfect. Hugh Jackman is excellent as the ruggedly, handsome outback ranch hand, Drover. He is just rough enough, but has just enough heart to be our hero. And Brandon Walters is perfect as the Nullah the boy who seems wise beyond his years. He is actually the narrator of our story. David Wenham is the perfect villain. He is the evil errand boy of Carney who terrorizes our hero and heroine throughout the film. All the acting in this film was solidly done.

This was a good movie. It would have been better had Luhrman stuck to making one of the three movies present in this one film. It's a good film, but you probably want to wait for DVD unless you are die-hard Hugh Jackman or Nicole Kidman fan.