catholiclefty

Bedtime Stories is a frustrating film, as while it reasonably satisfies for the time one is in the cinema, there are odd choices made that diminish the film significantly - and worse than that, there's the strong feeling that this is a waste of a very strong premise and the film as a whole should be better anyway. Bedtime stories that come true is a brilliant premise that should become a fantastic fantasy film, and this falls short.

On the plus side : the premise is very neat, there's a wide variety of well-realised settings for the 'stories' (though their appearance is too brief), and there's a reasonable amount of inventiveness in depicting the fulfillment of the stories in real life. But on the minus side : the wrapping story is uninvolving. The main story threads are also uninvolving - I didn't care if the school was demolished, and it is wrapped up in a nonsensical way (planning permission is denied because someone who knows but doesn't even like our main character just so happens to be the person in charge of such things, and yet he persuades her somehow. Off-screen), and I also didn't care who was going to run the new hotel, and that is wrapped up in a dumb way too (with a battle of ideas, where the idea of 'do nothing' is more or less the solution). The main love affair isn't either credible or well-written, and with no chemistry between the two. More egregious than all that, the writers themselves don't seem to be sure (or to care) whether the fulfillment of the stories is magic or coincidence - one incident points strongly to one, and one incident to the other, and various others skew one way or the other - and zero explanation is given as to why this may be happening anyway (not even 'a wizard did it'). And as for the decision that we should have a scene that involves the giving of an important presentation done in an idiotic and irritatingly mumbling 'can't speak because my tongue has swollen up' way - whoever made that decision should clearly be prevented from making films anymore. The last half hour or so, starting with this dumb scene, followed by an intrusive narrator intervention, and a ridiculous ending that involves people being evil for the sake of it and children being idiots, almost makes the picture fall to pieces entirely.

Adam Sandler may or may not be miscast here - I'm not entirely sure. My first reaction on hearing that he was going to do a Disney fantasy was that it was a very odd piece of casting indeed, and I still think that, but he does do a decent job for the most part. Guy Pearce is guilty of overacting in a part that probably requires it but it doesn't really work, which is a shame as we all know he's a decent actor. Russell Brand's character is entirely superfluous though does get quite a few laughs, albeit rather cheap ones. Richard Griffiths is ok, though his character has an aversion to germs which gives nothing to the film and reaches no sensible resolution. Keri Russell is fine in a limited role that requires her to inexplicably fall in love with a guy who can't be bothered to remember her name and who insults her at every turn. Lucy Lawless has one of the most pointless roles I've ever seen in a film given to someone instantly recognisable, that goes nowhere and achieves nothing. Teresa Palmer's only function in the film is to look gorgeous, which admittedly she's very very good at. Neither Courteney Cox or Jonathan Pryce are on the screen for long enough to really make an impact, though they both do ok.

As I said at the start, this is an ok film to watch, at least until the end unravels significantly. But the script urgently needs to be tightened up quite a number of notches to make this an efficient, tight and satisfying film, and it is difficult not to think that this should be a much better film when given such a good premise. Watchable, but ultimately rather disappointing. 5.5 out of 10.

I think Romeo + Juliet is a work of genius, and Moulin Rouge! one of the best films ever made (though I haven't managed to review it yet, naughty me). So Baz Luhrmann's latest, Australia, was very likely to be a bit of a let-down. And it is, indeed, a bit of a let-down, though the whole thing looks so good that it is tempting to overlook some of the more egregious flaws in the film - even so, you can't help but feel the credit for that should go either to the cinematographer or to Australia itself rather than Luhrmann, as his directorial flair, so obvious in R+J and MR!, seems mostly missing here. Competent, yes, but not spectacularly different from the norm in the way those two are.

There's three parts to the film - a vaguely comedy beginning, which starts irritating and gradually improves. Then there's the serious adventure, crossing Australia, which is probably the best part of the film. Just as it feels it is about to stop - with the conclusion of the love story, the soaring music, etc. - the film sluggishly starts up again and we get the third part, another hour which feels more like an abbreviated sequel than part of the same film, and involves the inevitable 'people all go in different directions because of circumstance and then have many problems finding each other again' part. The distinction is quite jarring, reminiscent of There Will Be Blood (my review) but clearly the last two scenes of that were an epilogue rather than, as here, part of the central story. I've no idea if the film is to be commended or not for trying to deal with the 'lost generations' of aboriginal children in the way it does, as I don't really know enough about 1930s/1940s Australia - but Germaine Greer doesn't seem to like it, which is usually a sign they've done quite well :-) Equally, I've no idea if this film is respectful to or disrespectful of the aboriginal people, though they do seem to be treated reasonably sympathetically my the makers. It certainly isn't very respectful to the white people, who are almost exclusively racist, dumb, heavy-drinking, violent idiots. Playing to stereotype, but probably not the image people really want to project of the country. Oh well.

Interestingly, the film gets by with continual references to The Wizard of Oz, which must be getting on for the most referenced film in other films ever - Inkheart (my review), though I neglected to mention it at the time, does so reasonably extensively too. Here even the soundtrack of much of the latter part of the film is influenced by Oz. I do appreciate the Oz-Australia link, and I can't be the only person fooled by the trailer into thinking the 'Oz' being talked about there was actually Australia, which is quite neat, but other than the name there really isn't that much of a link to expound upon.

Nicole Kidman, who I'll freely admit to generally rather liking even in supposed turkeys like Bewitched (which I also still need to review), is quite variable here. The first twenty minutes or so aren't very good at all - as a fish out of water, she over-plays it to an irritating degree, shrieking and moaning. Fortunately it doesn't last for long, and once she gets more settled, she improves immensely - the reasonably early scene where Oz first comes up is probably the nicest character piece in the whole film, and she manages here to do awkward and uncomfortable and yet quite endearing in a much more understated and effective way. After that, while there is little outstanding about most of her performance, there's nothing to complain about it either. Hugh Jackman is basically fine as a tough bloke with a big heart though there's nothing really new about his character. He does emotional quite well when he gets the opportunity. Bryan Brown lapses a bit into the stereotype he managed to avoid being in Dean Spanley (my review), but not awfully so. David Wenham does end up as a stereotypical pantomime villain, bar the moustache-twirling, but that's a script problem - he doesn't do a bad job with what he has. Brandon Walters is mainly very good, even when having to recite vaguely aboriginal mumbo-jumbo, though I found myself not managing to pick up on what he was saying a few times. As a narrator of sorts, this isn't an example of a bad use of a narrator, but I do query the need to start the film and then push back a little and get back to the start about 15 minutes later. If Luhrmann is trying to emphasise that this is his story and/or Australia's story, rather than that of the white colonisers and the land-owners, perhaps this is forgivable, but it feels a bit of a conceit nevertheless.

I did quite like this film, but it falls far short of the masterpiece that has been Luhrmann's previous two films, and the story structure needs reform - the beginning needs to be toned down from silly slapstick, and the last hour either needs drastically shortening, or lengthening and hiving off into a sequel, or folded into the earlier part of the film somehow. It's worth seeing at the cinema (unless you have a very very good home theatre cinema) if only for the beautiful cinematography. 7 out of 10.