Wednesday 7th January

Australia

Director: Baz Luhrman
Year: 2008
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Brandon Walters

In an attempt to start going to the cinema a bit more often (my cinema visits got fewer and fewer in the second half of 2008, and I miss them), this was the first film I saw there this year. And it turned out to be a good choice, thankfully.

The critics hadn't been overly kind to this film, mostly calling it mediocre at best. The one thing it had going for it was that they claimed it was clearly a Baz Luhrman film. Being that I've loved every one of his films that I've seen in the past, I thought this was reason enough to see it.

On that point at least, the critics were right. Some of the more bizarre shots that you wouldn't normally seen in an epic were clearly the director's creations. In fact, this is what I loved about the film. It was indeed epic in length, but not so much in style. However, the pieces that were missing were the things I often hate about epics. Essentially, it didn't feel pretentious, there was no overacting (although there were a few lingering shots on the main characters), and it wasn't desperately trying to win Oscars (I don't think - it didn't feel like it anyway).

The film is long (it has a running time of 2 hours 45 minutes), but at no point did I not care about the characters or what was happening to them. Special mention also has to go to Brandon Walters, the boy who plays Nullah - an amazing performance from an actor in a pretty decent cast.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5