The setting of this film is in northern Australia at the beginning of World War II. An English aristocrat inherits a sprawling cattle ranch the size of Maryland. Soon after, English cattle barons plot to takeover her land. She reluctantly makes a pact with a rough and tumble stock man in order to protect her new property from the takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over hundreds of miles of unforgiving landscape, they experience first hand the bombing of Darwin Australia by Japanese forces. These same forces attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.
This historical melodrama stars popular Aussies Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. Even with that level of celebrity wattage, it's unlikely to attract tweens and younger teens. Older teens, especially mature girls, may be drawn to the romance played up in advertising. This film deals with mature themes like racism, greed, war, class consciousness and sexual politics. The violence is realistic and occasionally bloody with characters speared, shot, burned, drowned and beaten. The characters' sexual chemistry and tension turns into several passionate kisses and a love-making scene with bare shoulders, a man's chest and a with a woman's underwear, back and legs all visible. The Northern Territory is portrayed as full of hard-drinking, aboriginal-hating men and demure high-society couples. Mature teens who see this film will learn about Australia's role in World War II and how the country historically treated its indigenous people. 5* (I really liked this movie)
165 min, Adventure directed and written by Baz Luhrmann and also written by Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan with Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Shea Adams, Eddie Baroo, Ray Barrett, Tony Barry, Jamal Sydney Bednarz, Damian Bradford, Bryan Brown, Nathin Butler, Tara Carpenter, Rebecca Chatfield, Lillian Crombie, Max Cullen, Essie Davis, Arthur Dignam.
Note: Rotten Tomatoes 55% with 223 critics 65% with 261,517 audience scores, Imdb 6.6* out of 10* with 118,756 reviews, Metacritic 53 out of 100 with 38 critic reviews 6.9 out of 10 with 225 user scores, Common Sense Media Sandie Angulo Chen, 3* out of 5*, age 15+, 1* messages 2* role models & sex, 3* language, drinking, drugs & smoking, 4* violence, Roger Ebert 3*, Amazon 4.6* out of 5* with 3097 reviews.
Special Note: In an interview that aired October 16, 2008, Hugh Jackman told 60 minutes (1979) that Nicole Kidman agreed to star in the film without reading the script. According to Jackman, she told him at a Super Bowl party that she had to be in the movie. When Jackman told her he didn't even have a script, Kidman told him to forget the script, because Baz Luhrmann was directing. Nicole saved Hugh Jackman from a poisonous scorpion on the set. She noticed the scorpion crawling up his leg. She calmly told him not to move, stooped down, scooped the arachnid into her hat, walked over to the woods and released it. Everyone applauded, then they asked why she hadn't just stomped on it. She replied, 'I would never kill an animal. Every creature here has its purpose. This one just didn't belong in Hugh's bag!" Over 1,500 wild horses were used for this movie. Four different horses played the drover's horse.
Mistakes: After the title, when the animated globe switches from Australia to Europe, Germany has modern borders? In 1939 the Third Reich included what is now western Poland, East Prussia/Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) next to Lithuania, Austria, and Sudetenland. Late in the film, the barman has crates of Victoria Bitter. It wasn't available outside the Australian state of Victoria until the 1970s. The Zeros did not carry bombs, they carried auxiliary or drop tanks for long range missions, in the movie they show the Zeros dropping the tanks as bombs.
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