I know, it looks awful.
Most probably haven't heard of this film yet, most probably won't even see this film when it opens overseas but I thought I'd give it a plug anyway seeing as it opened yesterday here in Australia and across the ditch in New Zealand, it's also opening up at the Toronto Film Festival in a couple of weeks too. This film is Australia's first genuine attempt at a film franchise ever. It's being financed by Paramount for $AU20 Million, which is a freakin' huge budget for an Aussie film, stars a bunch of local unknowns mostly from TV soap operas and was filmed entirely here. What's it about? It's based on a series of beloved and popular books written by John Marsden known as 'The Tomorrow Series', if you were a teen in the early 90's in Australia chances are you read this series. The plot is basically:
Sound familiar? Red Dawn probaby rings a few bells to some, film about a group of teens who take on Soviet invaders, however this series is more about the narrator of the war Ellie Linton and how the war changes her and not really about the war itself, we learn very little of the war outside of Ellie's country town, who the invaders are or how the war is going for Australia as the story is written in the form of hand written diary.
The film is the directorial debut for screenwriter Stuart Beatie, best known for doing the screenplays of such films as the first Pirates of the Caribbean film and Collateral.
Official Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_KhErNyiq8
My review is as follows.
I know what you're thinking coz I thought the exact same thing when I first saw the trailer for this film. This look awful. An Aussie film trying to masquerade itself as a Hollywood blockbuster? Then the poster came out and I laughed hysterically at how poorly designed and cliched it was. The character one sheets were even worse. It's bad enough we've got so many TV shows and music artists trying to emulate what American artists do but now our films? There was something so un-Australian about the look of this film, it looked like a dogs breakfast waiting to be served. And yet it isn't, this film is surprisingly good, in fact a crap load better than I anticipated.
I've only read the first book and the series but I never bought the premise. Australia get's invaded in a surprise attack for some unknown reason by some 'unnamed country'. Really? Anyone realize just how big Australia is and how enormous a task of invading this country would be? The invading military force would have to be absolutely massive. And a surprise attack? Who wouldn't see a force of such enormity coming especially with today's technology? Not only that but apparently our only ally in the whole war is New Zealand.
But I digress, the story follow the book fairly closely, a group of 7 friends head off for the long weekend into the bush for a camping trip. The story is narrated by Ellie, although instead of writing down the events in the film she records her diary on an iphone. After a fun few days in the bush the kids return home to find Ellie's house empty, her dog dead and all the power turned off. They then discover Australia has been invaded and the townsfolk have been rounded up in concentration camps.
The tone shifts rather quickly in this film, it's all bright and cheerful in the first half an hour with the kids having fun, camping, hunting, playing rugby, but the mood quickly changes when the kids get home, and is punctuated by a particular graphic scene in which Ellie looks on in horror as a man in one of the concentration camps is shot squarely in the head apologetically. This is where the film starts getting really tense and the kids must then decided whether to stick together and save themselves or to try and help their town against the invaders.
I gotta say the action is actually quite good in this film, surprisingly good actually, there's a chase sequence involving a garbage truck that's on par with most car chase sequences you see. A scene involving an exploding law mower is also quite impressive, and the CGI whilst not 100% perfect is pretty acceptable. And the film is shot beautifully, the Aussie bush hasn't looked this good in years.
The casting is unfortunately average for the most part across the board with the exception of it's lead actress, Caitlin Stasey is a name to look out for in the future, she really brings Elli to life here. Her character is the first of the group to kill an enemy solider and it haunts her for the rest of the film, she's the only one of the cast that genuinely comes across as having changed from innocent teen to soldier of war, emphasized by one particular scene where she pulls a gun on one of her group for falling asleep at the watch and screaming 'the punishment for falling asleep at the watch is death' and spewing F-bombs (yeah that's right America, we use F@#$ in our blockbusters). I gotta give credit to Caitlin, she is totally believable, she's ten times the role model to teen girls than what that doe-eyed, whiny Bella from Twilight is, just damn shame the rest of the cast is fairly average.
Look out for this girl in the future.
A few more nit picks include the dialog which is clunky at times, and the climax of the film which is shot poorly and moves along way to quickly, there's also an annoying 'heroes shot' at the end of the film that I didn't like and sure there's alot of 'yeah but...' type of questions but overall it's a damn enjoyable film. I think Stuart Beattie has done a bang up job here, he's added just enough Hollywood to this film to make it appealing to wider audiences, but at the same time it is still quintessentially an Australian movie and I encourage the few Aussies on this board to get behind this movie, our industry is in dire need of a big hit and this could be it. There is talk of doing sequels if this film is received well and given there's another 6 books left and I for one would welcome them, anything to kick start an Aussie film franchise is a good thing to me.
7/10
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