Australia
Headline: ** Messy Romantic Epic **
Title: AUSTRALIA
Quality: * * * Acceptability: -2
SUBTITLES: None
WARNING CODES:
Language: LL
Violence: VV
Sex: S
Nudity: N
RATING: PG-13
RELEASE: November 26, 2008
TIME: 165 minutes
STARRING: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Brandon Walters, Bryan Brown, David Gulpilil, and Jack Thompson
DIRECTOR: Baz Luhrmann
PRODUCERS: Baz Luhrmann, G. Mac Brown and Catherine Knapman
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: None
WRITERS: Baz Luhrmann, Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood, and Richard Flannagan
BASED ON THE NOVEL/PLAY BY: N/A
DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox/News Corp.
CONTENT: (PaPa, OO, RoRo, PCPC, RHRH, BB, CapCap, C, Ab, LL, VV, S, N, AA, D, M) Strong, slightly mixed pagan, occult worldview with strong Romantic politically correct, multicultural revisionist history from a leftist point of view that's false, with some strong moral and pro-capitalist elements about good versus evil, rescuing children and support for competition as opposed to economic monopoly, plus brief positive Christian content in contrast to some anti-Christian content where a false charge is made about the church being complicit in government racism when the opposite was historically true; six obscenities (including one "f" word), one strong profanity and six light profanities, plus some Australian vulgarities; strong action violence with some blood includes mortally wounded man falls into stream, horse wounded, villains deliberately stampede cattle, cattle trample man, cattle almost run boy off cliff, people on horseback try to stop cattle stampede, man murdered, Japanese planes attack Australian town with bombs, Japanese soldiers shoot at two men, man killed by spear; montage of implied fornication includes prone unmarried couple kissing on bed prior to implied fornication and other passionate kissing; upper male nudity; alcohol use and drunkenness; smoking; and, cheating, racism and white man frames black man for murder.
GENRE: Historical Drama
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Teenagers and adults
Please address your comments to:
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman/CEO of News Corp.
Peter Chernin, President/COO of The Fox Group
Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, Chairmen/CEO
Fox Filmed Entertainment
20th Century Fox Film Corp.
(Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic)
10201 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Phone: (310) 369-1000
Website: www.fox.com
SUMMARY: AUSTRALIA stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in a sprawling epic set in 1939 to 1941 about the dangers faced by an aristocratic Englishwoman, a cattle drover and a half-white, half-aborigine boy. AUSTRALIA could have been a really great epic, but it has too many endings, tries to do too much, and contains some pagan, occult theology.
IN BRIEF:
AUSTRALIA is a sprawling epic set in 1939 to 1941. It stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman as aristocratic Lady Sarah Ashley and a no-nonsense cattle drover. The couple is thrown together when an evil ranch manager kills Lady Ashley's husband. They also become surrogate parents to a mixed-race aborigine boy named Nullah. Together, this unlikely family faces cattle stampedes, poisoned water, desert, murder, separation, and war. Their final confrontation with the evil ranch manager takes place against the backdrop of a Japanese attack on the small port of Darwin.
AUSTRALIA could have been a great epic, but it falls apart on three key levels. Baz Luhrmann, the director, could not figure out how to end the movie, so there are at least three and maybe four endings. Also, the movie's worldview promotes several myth conceptions about Australian history and Christianity. Finally, the filmmakers try to pack too much into their epic, which occasionally loses focus despite some excellent performances and exciting, heartfelt moments. MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong caution due to the movie's endorsement of aborigine mysticism and occultism. Christians who are grounded in biblical faith will be deeply concerned about this.
NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr, publisher of Movieguide Magazine. For more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest Movieguide Magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org. Movieguide is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. Movieguide now offers an online subscription to its magazine version, atwww.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers.
