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OFCS Rating: 53% Rotten |
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| "What begins as a plucky tribute to the sweeping epics of yore soon turns into a bloated example of melodramatic storytelling at its most taxing." |
| ReelTalk Movie Reviews |
| A. J. Hakari |
3.5/5 | "Whilst it's not the masterpiece we so desperately wanted it to be, Australia still manages to be a good time at the cinema." |
| Cut Print Review |
| Anders Wotzke |
2.5/5 | "an endurance test of good intentions and tangled ideas, exploited facts and fuzzy fictions, where the performances, like the plot, are slapped onto the beautiful backgrounds with the broadest - and clumsiest - of strokes." |
| Channel 4 Film |
| Anton Bitel |
| "'Australia' runs out of steam along its lengthy journey, but it boasts gorgeous cinematography, a passionate romance, and more than a few thrilling scenes." |
| ReelTalk Movie Reviews |
| Betty Jo Tucker |
3/5 | "That's it's not confrontational or deconstructionist may seem rebellious on paper, but blown up on the big screen for nearly three hours, Australia sure plays as purely conventional." |
| PopMatters |
| Bill Gibron |
A- | "For the more inclined, Australia is a dramatically fertile, immersive gem: an epic with true epic intentions and execution, reinvesting in patient storytelling and widescreen magnetism." |
| BrianOrndorf.com |
| Brian Orndorf |
2/10 | "Part melodrama, part live-action cartoon, and entirely awful ..." |
| DVDTown.com |
| Christopher Long |
C- | "Baz Lurhman never sets a consistent tone for movie. There's too much camp for the film to be taken as a serious drama, and the filmmaker flirts with outdated '30s era cinema conventions of a John Ford western like "Stagecoach."" |
| ColeSmithey.com |
| Cole Smithey |
| "Nullah's story lies beyond the ken of his Caucasian caretakers." |
| PopMatters |
| Cynthia Fuchs |
2/4 | "An unwieldy stab at an old-fashioned movie epic, Baz Luhrmann's Australia is corny, implausible, well intentioned and even somewhat enjoyable in its own way, at least for a while." |
| Slant Magazine |
| Dan Callahan |
C+ | "Simple, beautiful, important and grounded. All of which, in Baz Luhrmann's hands, bored me." |
| EDGE Boston |
| David Foucher |
2.5/4 | "Unashamedly old-fashioned and corny, if not quite up to the director's usual high standards." |
| rec.arts.movies.reviews |
| David N. Butterworth |
C+ | "A strictly 1940s vintage Hollywood florid spectacle melodrama." |
| Ozus' World Movie Reviews |
| Dennis Schwartz |
2/4 | "A technical triumph in search of a heart that feels real." |
| DustinPutman.com |
| Dustin Putman |
B- | "A lively, rollicking, overlong, overstuffed movie that tries my patience as much as it entertains me." |
| EricDSnider.com |
| Eric D. Snider |
1/4 | "By unnecessarily extending the film (and shortening what should have formed its crux), Australia manages the almost unfeasible feat of becoming a less honest film than Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor." |
| eFilmCritic.com |
| Erik Childress |
| "Luhrmann just piles quotation mark on top of quotation mark" |
| CinePassion |
| Fernando F. Croce |
C | "Not just long and extravagant but woozy and ultimately rather silly...Luhrmann might have been aiming, Selznick-like, for a new Gone With the Wind, but his picture ends up feeling more like a second Duel in the Sun." |
| One Guy's Opinion |
| Frank Swietek |
4/5 | "A spellbinding, old-fashioned adventure story and romantic drama with many magical moments of high drama, emotional catharsis, and awesome cinematic beauty." |
| Spirituality and Practice |
| Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat |
B+ | "A wildly enjoyable experience, reconstituting some of the great traditions of the art form in engaging, unexpected ways." |
| Modern Fabulousity |
| Gabriel Shanks |
1/5 | "Luhrmann is...a parodist. And this is his Epic Movie." |
| The L Magazine |
| Henry Stewart |
2.5/4 | "It looks great, but the same comment can be made about Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, which shares more than a passing resemblance." |
| ReelViews |
| James Berardinelli |
6/10 | "It's a bit overloaded, though I love Luhrmann's obvious enthusiasm." |
| Window to the Movies |
| Jeffrey Chen |
| "Parental Content Review" |
| Screen It! |
| Jim Judy |
3/4 | "Baz Luhrmann's epic story of love and adventure isn't quite the classic it hopes to be, but it paints a vivid portrait of the titular continent on the brink of World War II." |
| Big Picture Big Sound |
| Joe Lozito |
2/5 | "o Baz Luhrmann htizei enan oyranoksysti apo filodoksies, pairnei to asanser gia tin taratsa kai boytaei sto keno" |
| Movies for the Masses |
| Joseph Proimakis |
5/5 | "Recreates the old pleasure of discovering an epic en masse...One moment in particular elicited a mass groan of ecstasy from our packed audience, which then elicited empathetic giggles from everyone." |
| Cinerina |
| Karina Montgomery |
3/5 | "I liked the characters, and I liked the actors, even if it didn't sweep me away." |
| 7M Pictures |
| Kevin Carr |
4/4 | "Baz' latest might differ from his Red Curtain Trilogy by doing away with the overt theatricality, madcap visuals and musical numbers, but it's still driven by his infectious love of every aspect of filmmaking." |
| Montreal Film Journal |
| Kevin N. Laforest |
C+ | "...the director's sweeping epic is so faithful to recreating the films of his father's generation from which it is cobbled together, the entire thing is embedded in artificiality." |
| Reeling Reviews |
| Laura Clifford |
| "Recalls the old-fashioned, golden-age Hollywood movie-movies that wrapped forbidden desire, aching heartbreak, personal tragedy, war, adventure and breathtaking thrills in a glittering overlay of movie-star glamor." |
| Miss FlickChick |
| Maitland McDonagh |
| "[U]nabashedly old-fashioned and proudly romantic... sincere and straight-up... embraces its own sentimentality without ever dipping into perilous levels of sappiness...." |
| Flick Filosopher |
| MaryAnn Johanson |
3.5/5 | "With measured visual flash, Luhrmann highlights the delightful presence of his two stars and realizes an unlikely feelgood film, in spite of its grave matters." |
| Film Threat |
| Matthew Sorrento |
2/4 | "Never quite locks together into the sweeping cinematic journey Luhrmann clearly set out to create." |
| TheMovieReport.com |
| Michael Dequina |
B- | "It's always nice to see pretty people doing great things, but in telling the story that should have been most his own, Luhrmann has ceded his vision to someone else." |
| Beliefnet |
| Nell Minow |
C | "Dutifully goes through the sweeping-swoony motions." |
| Lessons of Darkness |
| Nick Schager |
2/5 | "A busca de Austrália por uma identidade cinematográfica acaba levando o filme a oscilar perigosamente entre tons terrivelmente díspares." |
| Cinema em Cena |
| Pablo Villaca |
4/5 | "Watching Luhrmann swinging for the fences and missing is still a hell of a lot more entertaining than watching most other contemporary filmmakers hitting their usual singles and doubles." |
| eFilmCritic.com |
| Peter Sobczynski |
4/5 | "Luhrmann shamelessly indulges in the most sweeping style of filmmaking imaginable, filling the screen with expansive images, action and emotion, plus plenty of cheesy camp" |
| Shadows on the Wall |
| Rich Cline |
B | "This is a movie for those who say they don't make 'em like they used to." |
| Laramie Movie Scope |
| Robert Roten |
2.5/5 | "There's enough material in Australia to warrant a mini-series, which is how the feature film plays out. In one sitting, it's a tough sit." |
| Filmcritic.com |
| Sean O'Connell |
C+ | "Much like Scorsese's Gangs of New York, it's a film that has been long labored over, and the artist's love of the material is clear, but the inspiration has been lost along the way." |
| Decent Films Guide |
| Steven D. Greydanus |
10/10 | "An enormous, exotic, exhilarating frontier adventure that is, in its weight and grand ambition, on the epic scale of 'Gone With the Wind.'" |
| SSG Syndicate |
| Susan Granger |
8/10 | "Not just unashamedly old-fashioned, but altogether smug about it... For myself, I admire the defiant mustiness of the whole project." |
| Antagony & Ecstasy |
| Tim Brayton |
1/4 | "Baz Luhrmann's Titanic." |
| Film Freak Central |
| Walter Chaw |
3/4 | "The film is trying at times, but there is no question that the sheer spectacle of the film makes much of the consternation worth it." |
| Oscar Guy |
| Wesley Lovell |
| "Click here to see review" |
| Wolf Entertainment Guide |
| William Wolf |
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OFCS Rating: 53% Rotten |
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