Van Helsing Review

The eponymous character of Abraham Van Helsing is a creation of Bram Stoker in his 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. He's an aged Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments. He's supposed to have been simply an aged medical doctor of his time, but many adaptations of this character depict him as a vampire hunter, monster hunter, and the archenemy to Count Dracula. One of these creative reinterpretations was a movie released in 2004, Van Helsing. It is frankly not a good movie, but it's an interesting form of low-budget B-movie that I doubt anyone could have foreseen as little as a decade before its release. Silly a movie as it is, it's a guilty pleasure of mine to watch.

Famed monster slayer Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is dispatched to Transylvania with Friar Carl (David Wenham) to assist the last of the Valerious bloodline in defeating Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh). Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale) reveals that Dracula has formed an unholy alliance with Dr. Frankenstein's monster (Shuler Hensley) and is hell-bent on exacting a centuries-old curse on her family. Together Anna and Van Helsing set out to destroy their common enemy, but uncover some unsettling secrets along the way.

Ridiculous and over the top as Van Helsing is, I have to give it props for creativity. The character of Van Helsing is vastly different from his original depiction in Bram Stoker's Dracula. This is a young Van Helsing with more monster hunting gadgets and gizmos than any one person should be able to carry on themselves and still walk. This Van Helsing wields a rapid fire crossbow, spinning wrist blades, explosives, retractable silver stakes, and weaponized holy water. All of which are creatively used to his advantage in entertaining action scenes. The movie was distributed by Universal Pictures who made iconic monster movies back in the 1940's including Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and werewolves. Van Helsing brought several of these Hollywood icons together again in a way similar to the multi-monster movies that also Universal produced in the 1940's such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man or House of Dracula. There's even an implication that an escaped Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde is true identity of The Hunchback of Notre Dame whom Van Helsing encounters in Paris early in the film. The way that these monsters came together felt natural for this particular world setting and the varied methods of combating these creatures made for some interesting fight scenes, especially in cases when multiple monsters were ganging up on our heroes and a weapon that might hurt one creature would have no effect on the other creature.

I am convinced that this was a fairly low budget movie, or at least it was for the most part inexpensive to make. I'd estimate that roughly 85-90% of Van Helsing was filmed with the actors in front of a green screen and then a fleet of very busy CGI artists filled in the details afterwards. I realize that CGI can be very costly, but I can't imagine it being more expensive than creating elaborate, believable sets or filming on location. There have been a number of movies that basically were CGI intensive with actors in front of green screens which ended up looking just terrible, such as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This movie looks pretty solid, though. Many of the monsters are just as CGI generated as the villages and castles they terrorize, but they look great. And I feel that it is important to say that Van Helsing features one of the best looking movie werewolves I've ever seen, even if it's transformation is unorthodox.

Van Helsing received mostly negative reviews. It was criticized for having poor acting, way too much CGI and special effects, and being a mockery of the horror genre. I can't exactly disagree with most of these criticisms. Most of the acting is very melodramatic and is so stylized that it's hard not to scoff at the movie's attempts to look cool. I can't for the life of me imagine the actors falling apart in peals of laughter at some of the poses and superfluous, artificial back flips that were required of them. Parts of the dialogue were so cheesy that I simply had to roll my eyes before pressing on in the movie. Van Helsing isn't trying to be a horror movie; the horror genre is supposed to elicit feelings of fear in its viewers. This movie doesn't even make a poor attempt to do that. Sure, there are iconic monsters from horror movies, but Van Helsing is an action movie and the action choreography is fun, if a little hard to swallow at times. Critics may have dragged the movie through the mud, but the film grossed $300 million worldwide and did well with the general public, becoming one of the biggest blockbusters released in 2004. That ought to tell you something about its quality.

Objectively, Van Helsing isn't a terrifically good movie, but it is a whole lot of fun. The action is great, the visuals are above average, and the ridiculous story is entertaining enough to enjoy. It starts out looking like a special effects overkill, but by the end it succeeds in assembling all the monsters and plot threads into a high-voltage climax. Van Helsing is silly, but spectacularly fun. If it doesn't sound like something you'd enjoy, you probably won't. I did, however, and I recommend seeing Van Helsing for the fun of it. With so many classic monsters present, it makes for a good movie to watch during Halloween. I have a copy of Van Helsing sitting on my movie shelf next to other titles I like to enjoy every now and again.

What is your favorite monster hunter movie? What do you like about it? Comment below and tell me all about it!

Pan Review

I do enjoy the concept of Peter Pan, though I've found the book and most of the movies it inspired to be subpar. Then along comes an unnecessary prequel movie that no one was asking for; Pan (2015). It certainly takes some creative liberties; Pan raises some questions no one thought to ask, introduces more of Neverland which we'd never thought to wonder about, and shows us events which don't make a lot of sense considering its source material. But on the other hand, it shows us some genuinely good scenes and some fantastic special effects.

Peter (Levi Miller) is a tiresome golden-child orphan in second-World-War London. But the nuns who run this orphanage are selling off their charges to Pirates who drop from the ceiling on bungee cords and pluck them from their beds before stowing them aboard an airborne galleon to Neverland. Head of the Pirate's exploits is Captain Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), who imprisons Peter and the other boys as slave labor to mine for Pixum; a rejuvenating substance with magical properties. Peter meets a fellow minor named James Hook (Garrett Hedlund) and his accomplice, Mr. Smee  (Adeel Akhtar). The three steal one of Blackbeard's flying ships and escape into the forest where they are found and nearly executed by the natives before the Chief's daughter, Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara), notices Peter's pan flute pendant, left to Peter by his mother (Amanda Seyfried). The natives decide that Peter is their people's greatest hero, the legendary Pan. As part of his heritage, Peter should have the ability to fly, but lacks the ability to do so. Peter, Hook, and Tiger Lily race to reach the hidden Fairy Kingdom to enlist the help of the fairies to defeat Blackbeard before Blackbeard, himself, launches an attack to destroy all the fairies.

The story here has little rhyme or reason to it. It's a prequel for the sake of a prequel, and prequels notoriously anger fans and bore audiences. Sure there are images that herald back to the original Peter Pan, but it's all mashed up, weird, and inaccurate. It's like an origin-myth reboot of the Peter Pan story from studio executives who don't care how it got booted in the first place. And then for good measure, they shoehorn some steampunk where it has no business being, not unlike 2011's The Three Musketeers. Sure, there's some neat scenes, but the story raises questions no one was thinking to ask and then doesn't even bother answering them all. The story is very bland, by-the-book re-imagining of a classic story that was simply not called for.

On the other hand, there are some really neat scenes in Pan that probably couldn't have occurred without this particular twisted take on the classic story. One of the earliest action scenes involves Peter and a few other boys being abducted by a flying pirate ship in the middle of World War II London. Naturally, this draws the attention of the British air force and an exciting aerial battle between a cannon firing galleon and World War II fighter planes ensues. This scene was incredible! Later when making their escape from Blackbeard's clutches, Peter, Hook, and Smee rotate their flying ship upside down and have to cling on the ships rigging to avoid falling hundreds of feet to their deaths. That was another truly fun scene that probably couldn't have been done in the original setting.

The camera work was above average. Granted, a large portion of this movie had to be filmed in front of a green screen. So many of the impressive wide shots of detailed scenery were mostly impressive thanks to a large number of busy CGI artists. I think that in order to emphasize Peter's lack of ability to fly, there are a number of scenes that showcase some dizzying heights. The shots in those scenes were probably more impressive in 3-D. There were a number of scenes that made me stop and simply appreciate how well organized the shot looked, despite how bland the story is and how CGI intensive it is.

Ignoring the fact that nuns are in cahoots with pirates from another world, Pan does some weird things with its characters. James Hook is a miner in Blackbeard's mines, he's got an awkwardly fake cowboy accent, and seems to be a dreadful amalgamation of Indiana Jones and Slim Pickens from Dr. Strangelove. How this Stetson-wearing steampunk cowboy eventually becomes the infamous dreaded Captain Hook, I'll never understand. In what looks like it could have been a deleted scene from Mad Max: Fury Road, thousands of grubby slave-worker youths mine for Pixum while singing along to the rock band Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from their album "Nevermind." (Get it?) This is just as bizarre and out of place as watching some medieval peasants sing Queen's "We Will Rock You" in A Knight's Tale. Sure creative liberties were taken, but golly, some of them are just so weird it makes the movie hard to swallow. To be fair, though, it was a pretty good cover of Nirvana's song.

Of the many things I can rant about the Pan movie, the one that bothers me the most is how "The Natives" were handled. The orignal book has a tribe of wigwam-dwelling Native Americans who live in Neverland and are referred to by the author as "Redskins" or the Piccaninny Tribe. In what is possibly the best known rendition of Peter Pan, Disney's 1953 animated movie has these characters depicted in the most embarrassing of racial stereotyping and political incorrectness. To avoid risking such racial profiling, "The Natives" in Pan were a cluster of multiple racial backgrounds, and instead of living in wigwams, their culture seems to be inspired by Polynesians and the tree dwelling Ewoks of Star Wars. There are Asians, blacks, whites, pacific islanders, Hispanic, and middle-eastern people making up The Natives. Of course, the one Native that we're meant to be concerned with (Tiger Lily) is white, which ends up being another example of whitewashing in the film industry in spite of obvious attempts to appear multi-racial and politically correct. Pan seems to be trying to show us how open minded it is with the natives and falling flat on its face.

Pan does have some good scenes here and there, but overall it's a weak attempt to start a franchise specifically made in hopes to make sequels. The movie raises questions no one thought to ask about a solid, well-established piece of literature, and then doesn't bother answering them. This was probably in hopes of tackling them in a sequel. Pan has done so poorly in the box office and with critics that I doubt there will be one. Sure, the movie takes a generous number of creative liberties, but it retains the adventurous spirit of the classic tale and finds a few bursts of magic in its treatment of classic characters, though not enough to offset the rushed plot and GCI-fueled action. Some scenes I think are worth seeing on the big screen, but not at full ticket price; get a matinee ticket if you can. If you don't really value the big screen experience as much, wait for it on home video.

What is your favorite Peter Pan-inspired movie? Comment below and tell me why!

Rise of the Guardians Review

I’m told that Dreamworks isn’t doing so well financially. Several of their more recent movies (apart from Home) did poorly in the box office. I’m not sure why. The recent ones I’ve seen were pretty good. Adding to that list is Rise of the Guardians (2012). Featuring a mash-up of modern children’s folk tale heroes, it’s been compared to The Avengers for kids. I think that’s selling Rise of the Guardians a bit short; it is truly a fun movie!

Generation after generation, immortal Guardians like Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Sandman, and the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) protect the world's children from darkness and despair. However, an evil boogeyman named Pitch Black (Jude Law) schemes to overthrow the Guardians by obliterating children's belief in them. It falls to a winter sprite named Jack Frost (Chris Pine) to thwart Pitch's plans and save the Guardians from destruction.

I can see why people would think to compare Rise of the Guardians with The Avengers. Both have completely mismatched sets of heroes uniting and gathering together to fight a mutual powerful enemy. Both have lots of fun action and high stakes for their respective world settings. But saying that Guardians is for kids is selling it short. Guardians has a delightful whimsy and charm to it that I’m sure would delight anyone of any age.

I loved the characters in this movie. As a general rule, any movie that features Santa Claus will inevitably be awful. That wasn’t the case in Guardians. The Santa here is not your traditional Santa; he’s got a Russian accent and has a prominent Russian cultural personality. He has tattooed arms that say “Naughty” on one and “Nice” on the other, and he fights with two swords. But he’s still a fanciful and lovable character; he’s just fun! The Easter Bunny is voiced by Hugh Jackman who apparently loved the role because he could use his natural Australian accent. The Easter Bunny is another fun tough guy who wields boomerangs. Everyone in the movie is likable and interesting in his or her own right.

The story moves logically and practically. The setting is a little bit on the complex side, but everything is explained gradually and shown to viewers as the story evolves, sometimes even during action scenes. There are rules specific to the settings that need to be established so that they can be adhered to or even broken to make a suitably compelling story. Everything is well written and shown to us so that we understand enough to get us to the next scene where the stakes are even higher. Yet the story is simple enough that even young audiences can keep up with it.

The animation is stellar here. The characters are unique and have very interesting designs. Their powers are really neat to behold as they conjure up portals around the world and paint windows and leaves with icy frost. One of the more visually interesting characters is the Sandman; he’s basically mute, but has small images made of glowing golden sand appear above his head to illustrate what he’s trying to communicate. Coupled with his expressive facial features you can still tell what this silent character is thinking, which is a marker of superior animation.

Guardians, as stated above, was a box office bomb. It was released on November 21, 2012 and received mixed to positive reviews, but was a financial disappointment, contributing to a studio writedown of $83 million for the quarter and the layoffs of 350 employees. Rise of the Guardians was the last DreamWorks Animation film distributed by Paramount, as DreamWorks has signed a five-year distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, which started in 2013 with The Croods. With that kind of a financial failure, I’m not surprised Paramount didn’t want to renew a distribution contract with Dreamworks. Guardians may not have been the event that destroyed the deal with Paramount, but it probably contributed to it.

I have to admit that the idea of a group of holiday mascots and children’s urban legends teaming up to fight the Boogieman certainly sounds rather outlandish, childish, and probably not something that anyone over the age of eight would enjoy very much. But Rise of the Guardians is a good, solid animated feature. I genuinely liked it. It was complex and humorous enough to be compelling to adults while also being simple and whimsical enough for children. I don’t think it’s fair to say it is like The Avengers for kids since this is a creative and engaging fantasy story that is sheer fun to get lost in. It was a box office bomb, but I really don’t understand why. I liked this movie enough to want to get a copy of on Blu-Ray eventually. Rise of the Guardians makes a fun family movie night, and it’s still fun even if you don’t have kids to watch it with.

Did you have a particular holiday mascot or urban legend that you were fond of as a kid? Comment below and tell me why!

X-Men: Days of Future Past Review

The X-Men film franchise has possibly been the longest running superhero film series after The Marvel Cinematic Universe which comprises all the movies surrounding The Avengers. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) acts as a sequel to both X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: First Class, it's the seventh X-Men movie, and ties the original trilogy and prequel together beautifully. It's also the best film in the franchise in my opinion!

Sentinels, robots that were created for the purpose of hunting down mutants, were released in 1973. 50 years later the Sentinels would also hunt humans who aid mutants. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his X-Men try their best to deal with the Sentinels but the modern robots they face are able to adapt and deal with all mutant abilities. Xavier decides to go back in time to change things. He asks Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), who can send a person's consciousness into the person's past, to send him back, but she can only send someone back a few weeks because if she sends someone back further it could harm them. So Logan (Hugh Jackman) decides to go back himself because his healing powers might be able to withstand it. Xavier tells Logan that Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is responsible for the Sentinels' adaptive powers. When she learned about the Sentinels, she sought out and killed Bollivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the man who created them. Xavier also tells Logan that Mystique would be caught and studied, and her shape-shifting abilities would be added to the Sentinels, thus granting them the ability to adapt. Logan must go to the younger Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and ask him to help; the problem is that Xavier was despondent at the time and was taking a drug which allows him to walk but takes away his powers. Logan is asked to find young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and enlist his help also to prevent the Sentinels from ever being created.

Days of Future Past has a huge cast. A lot of actors return to reprise their roles from other films in the franchise, some as main characters and others as brief cameos. We also get a lot of new faces, too. Peter Dinklage is a actor born with achondroplasia, a common form of dwarfism, and is known for his role as Tyrion Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones series. In Days of Future Past, he's the main antagonist, and is a business man through and through. He sees a potential to market something and is literally creating a threat out of mutants, who are virtually unheard of in the 1970's. He has no real hatred of mutants himself; he's just trying to market a product and goes to several countries' governments trying to sell his robots. I don't recall the original Trask having dwarfism, but Dinklage plays the role beautifully.

Another new face is Evan Peters as Quicksilver. This is a different actor portraying the same character we saw in the post-credits scene in Captian America: The Winter Soldier. Disney owns the Marvel Cinematic Universe while Fox owns the rights to X-Men, so these two versions of Quicksilver are not actually connected to each other. I wish Quicksilver was in the movie more; he was a really fun character. He can think and move at supersonic speeds, and is annoyed that nothing else moves at the same speed he does. The way he uses his powers is remarkable and creative, and he provides some comic relief to the movie.

The special effects in Days of Future Past were phenomenal. The 1970's Sentinels looked a lot like how a big robot from the 70's would look, while the future Sentinels were downright terrifying. In fact, future Sentinels were possibly some of the scariest movie killer robots I can think of; easily on par with the Sentinels from The Matrix series or the T-800 from The Terminator. The action scenes were fantastic, though a couple scenes with the future Sentinels were pretty violent. Had some shots lasted a little longer or if they had been much more graphic, the movie could have received an R rating. It did not, of course, but they were kind of pushing it. I suppose that dismembering someone made of metal is considered less graphic than dismembering someone made of flesh. Either way, I'd be mindful of the age of any kids you take to see this movie.

Time Travel stories can get really confusing with alternate time lines, paradoxical dichotomies, and questioning determinism and free will. This one is actually pretty straight forward. That's not to say the story is simple, it just doesn't become needlessly complex due to the time travel element. Having said that, there are a couple of continuity errors between this and other X-Men movies. This is such a good and solid movie that I have decided to believe that those continuity errors were put in place for the sole purpose of correcting really bad story decisions in previous movies. Days of Future Past is a solid story on its own.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is probably my favorite X-Men movie to date. It ties all the other movies together, tells a really good story, features some excellent acting, interesting characters, and some fun cameos from familiar characters. This is such a satisfying X-Men movie that if they were to end the franchise here, I would have nothing to complain about. They won't be ending the franchise here; stick around for a post-credit teaser. While Days of Future Past is great, it's not a particularly good place to start watching the X-Men movies. Make sure you watch X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men: First Class, and maybe Wolverine before diving into this one. You needn't bother with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, that movie was really terrible and doesn't influence the story line here. I recommend catching Days of Future Past in theaters if you can. It's also worth owning once it hits Blu-Ray.

There are still a lot of X-Men storylines and characters that movies can showcase, what would you like to see in an upcoming X-Men film? Comment below and tell me about it!

The Wolverine Movie Review

So, we've got a 6th X-Men movie out now. The Wolverine (2013) follows the events of the 3rd X-Men installment, X-Men: The Last Stand. X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: First Class were both prequels. In my review of Origins I said I was worried there wasn't much left that could be done with Wolverine. That said, I was worried that The Wolverine was going to be as weak and shoddily done as Origins. There are times I enjoy being wrong.

Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), has sworn off violence after he was forced to kill his beloved Gene Grey (Famke Janssen) and is still haunted by her memory. Logan is summoned to Japan by a sword-wielding mutant named Yukio (Rila Fukushima) on behalf of one of Logan's old friends. This friend, Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), was a Japanese soldier whose life Wolverine saved in during the bombing of Nagasaki in World War II. Yashida is now the head of a powerful technology corporation, and upon his deathbed asks Logan to protect his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamato), whom he has personally chosen to take over the family business - much to the chagrin of her plotting father Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada). The Yakuza, a transnational crime syndicate in Japan, stages a high-profile kidnapping of Mariko during Yashida's funeral and Wolverine comes to her rescue. But Logan finds his mutant healing powers slowly disappearing and the two barely escape with their lives. With the Yakuza, a group of ninjas, and a ruthless mutant named Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) hot on their trail, Wolverine may not be able to protect Mariko for long.

Of all the X-Men movies out there, this one is the least X-Men-like. There are only three mutants in the movie, and Yukio has precognitive abilities and can foresee people's deaths. So Wolverine and Viper are the only ones with very "flashy" powers. That said, most of The Wolverine could have simply been a Japanese crime movie. I think that's really interesting; while there are plenty of action scenes, it doesn't have a huge scale and with lots of buildings being destroyed or entire cities and populations at risk. Things don't get comic book-standard over the top until near the end. That's not very common in superhero movies and it brought the story and characters more down to earth.

It's good to see Hugh Jackman return as to this role in a movie that understands the character's inner conflict. Contrary to what was the case in Origins, Wolverine is well developed. With his healing powers that have kept him alive for over a hundred years, disappearing Logan is forced to face his own mortality, what he has done with his life, what his purpose is, and what he might do in the possibly short time that remains. The character becomes rather existential at moments which helps define the character in new and interesting ways. On the other hand, the comic book version of Wolverine was a kind of rage monster. Wolverine was a bit of a softy in the previous films. In The Wolverine we get to see him do a lot more hack 'n slash fight scenes that herald back to the classic Wolverine.

The movie does become a little ridiculous at times; there are lots of crime organization thugs that pop up at every turn, a clan of ninjas whose loyalties and intents are vague, and some fight scenes push credibility at times. There is a fight scene on one of Japan's bullet trains which was highly enjoyable and possibly more creative and fun than the train fight with Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2.  Not every scene is particularly good, but the poorer scenes aren't bad and the good scenes are very good.

The Wolverine features some excellent Japanese scenery, suspenseful and fun action scenes, a better than average production, and some interesting characters, some of whom register more powerfully than others. I feel like overall it could have been a little bit better, but it's a far cry better than Origins was. It's worth renting, possibly worth buying if you're collecting the X-Men movies like I am. Make sure you stick around for the mid-credits scene, if you're an X-Men fan, you'll be even more psyched for next year's X-Men: Days of Future Past.

If you've seen The Wolverine or The Last Stand you can probably guess what's coming up in Days of Future Past. What would you like to see happen in the upcoming X-Men movie(s)? Comment below and tell me all about it!

Australia Movie Review

I postponed seeing Australia (2008) because most of the people who recommended it to me don't generally give me good movie recommendations. I sat down to watch this nearly three hour movie expecting a overlong, bland movie about a couple who bicker and fight, then fall in love and live happily ever after. It turns out Australia was much better, and much more rich than I had assumed.

In northern Australia at the beginning of World War II, an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman), inherits a cattle station the size of Maryland called Faraway Downs. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn stock-man Drover (Hugh Jackman) to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.

I'm sure the country Australia was somewhat romanticized in this movie, but wow! Australia spared no expense to show us some gorgeous shots of the outback. We get to see some Australian historical tidbits that I was unfamiliar with such as racism and Japan attacking Australia during World War II. I knew Japan attacked Australia, but most of my WWII studies revolve around The United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan; most other country's involvement seems to get swept under the rug. Australia is full of rugged cowboys reminiscent of Crocodile Dundee, Aborigine culture, and gorgeous Australian wildlife and wilderness. This movie shows us the Australia of our dreams.

The characters were good, too. Lady Ashley was hilarious for the first part of the film, being a pompous, lady-like British aristocrat who is shocked and appalled by nearly everything the brawny Australians do. She sees herself as the only civilized woman on the continent and believes that every graceless man there intends to have his way with her. The British seem to have a long standing practice of dressing in warm climates as if they were not, and Lady Ashley keeps up the tradition.

Drover gets his name from his job; a Drover is an experience stockman who moved livestock. I've seen Hugh Jackman in a number of movies but I think this is the first time I've seen Jackman actually use his native Australian accent. If you needed a rugged, manly Australian character in your movie, Jackman is easily your best bet. Kidman and Jackman bounce off of each other really well. Early on, Drover is talking to Lady Ashley about breeding horses which she erroneously interprets as coming on to her. Drover is offended by this and sparks fly and hilarity ensues. They do comedy bits well together, but they also have good chemistry. Later on they develop romantic interest in one another and while their characters clash, I can still buy their love.

Part of what draws the characters together is a Nullah (Brandon Walters) who is half-aboriginal, half-white. The boy is about 11, lives with his mother who works at Faraway Downs. Walters was a great kid actor and does a fantastic job of playing a tragic character. Since Australia is basically a western, there has to be evil cattle tycoons and rattlers. Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) plays both roles at some point in the movie. He's a great villain and makes very personal attacks on each character, and of course it's all about money and revenge for him.

Australia sounds like a long romantic western, but there are some excellent action scenes; brawling bar fights, stampedes, bombed harbors, hiding from Japanese invaders, and more. There were times I was on the edge of my seat, especially the scene where the stampeding cattle are headed for a cliff. The movie was longer than I thought it needed to be. At times it appeared that  the movie was coming to a nice place to end and wrap things up. But a small new plot development appeared and moved the story forward. This happened two or three times before the end credits started rolling. That isn't to say it was bad, Australia simply felt a bit longer than it needed to be.

Australia was a good movie, almost like an Australian Gone With the Wind. Good acting, great cinematography, romance, action, and drama; what's not to like? I imagine most men would be put off from Australia at first since it really does look like a dull "chick flick" at first glance. There is a good blend of action and drama that I think would give Australia an appeal to most any type of movie watcher. This is an excellent, worthwhile renter and I could see some people enjoying it enough to want their own copy.