'Tomorrow When The War Began' - one of Australia's more popular pieces of fiction - doesn't exactly translate smoothly to film in this 20 million dollar blockbuster.
Of course, hearing the term 'blockbuster' attributed to any Australian film is indicative of what we can hope is a growing film industry lathered with potential (let's just forget about 'Australia'). Tomorrow When the War Began aims for the appearance of a big budget, Hollywood- esquire film whilst also trying to keep its feet planted in Australia. It is half-way successful in that regard, as the special effects are surprisingly impressive and large-scale, yet this is perhaps one of the failings of this film.
The attraction of the recent, more popular Australian films is generally in their capacity to impress with such constrained budgets. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and in the case of 'TWTWB', the lack of necessity appears to have made director/writer Stuart Beattie forgot some key requirements for a good film - the most noticeable being an absence of a good script.
Well done if you can be happy with this film despite its sloppy dialog, clumsy characters and urine-puddle acting. At moments, TWTWB feels like a bad horror movie, where the characters lacking sense of urgency during life-threatening moments is at odds with the seriousness of their situation, which dawns more often during moments of relative safety.
Despite their actions being hard to believe, the characters are, at least, well-varied and make a watch-able team. More could have been done to vary the pace of the film, whereas, as it seems to drag you through the mud in a constant onslaught of dire peril, only coming up for air in sporadic moments of misplaced humour.
If it weren't for these failings bludgeoning me over the head every few minutes, I would have really enjoyed this movie. For an Australian film the effects are great and there are some seat-clenching moments. It's much different from what one can generally expect to come out of this country and hopefully it will be well-received, but when you've got films like 'Two Hands' getting seven stars I've got to be honest.
Also I'll note that just because it's drawing material from a book doesn't change the fact that parts of the film could've been given more attention. Direct adaptations have a tendency to fail ala 'HP and the Philosopher's Stone'.
Of course, hearing the term 'blockbuster' attributed to any Australian film is indicative of what we can hope is a growing film industry lathered with potential (let's just forget about 'Australia'). Tomorrow When the War Began aims for the appearance of a big budget, Hollywood- esquire film whilst also trying to keep its feet planted in Australia. It is half-way successful in that regard, as the special effects are surprisingly impressive and large-scale, yet this is perhaps one of the failings of this film.
The attraction of the recent, more popular Australian films is generally in their capacity to impress with such constrained budgets. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and in the case of 'TWTWB', the lack of necessity appears to have made director/writer Stuart Beattie forgot some key requirements for a good film - the most noticeable being an absence of a good script.
Well done if you can be happy with this film despite its sloppy dialog, clumsy characters and urine-puddle acting. At moments, TWTWB feels like a bad horror movie, where the characters lacking sense of urgency during life-threatening moments is at odds with the seriousness of their situation, which dawns more often during moments of relative safety.
Despite their actions being hard to believe, the characters are, at least, well-varied and make a watch-able team. More could have been done to vary the pace of the film, whereas, as it seems to drag you through the mud in a constant onslaught of dire peril, only coming up for air in sporadic moments of misplaced humour.
If it weren't for these failings bludgeoning me over the head every few minutes, I would have really enjoyed this movie. For an Australian film the effects are great and there are some seat-clenching moments. It's much different from what one can generally expect to come out of this country and hopefully it will be well-received, but when you've got films like 'Two Hands' getting seven stars I've got to be honest.
Also I'll note that just because it's drawing material from a book doesn't change the fact that parts of the film could've been given more attention. Direct adaptations have a tendency to fail ala 'HP and the Philosopher's Stone'.