Australia star Kidman 'the kiss of death'

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Nov 26, 2008

Baz Luhrmann's outback epic Australia has opened overseas to scathing reviews, with one British columnist describing Nicole Kidman as "the kiss of death in practically every movie she has starred in".

In a review headlined ''Nicole Kidman drifts about like a lost porcelain doll", Melanie Reid, of The Times of London, said Luhrmann made a "fatal error" in casting the star.

"Australia the movie ... has one huge problem. It stars Nicole Kidman. Big mistake. Big, big mistake. At a stroke, the world's female cinemagoers will say as one: 'I'm not going to see it if she's in it'," Reid wrote.

"Kidman is one of those women who turns other women off. And no, not just because she's pretty and we're jealous. It is because we perceive, and men don't, that she's one of the most overrated actors in the world, a woman who has been the kiss of death in practically every movie she has starred in.

"Australia the country deserves redder blood than this."

The New York Daily News said Luhrmann started with plenty of potential, but squandered it almost immediately.

"With Australia, Luhrmann obviously intends to stage a grand romance against the epic backdrop of World War II. But what we get instead is an unwieldy mess that needed another six months in the editing room," Elizabeth Weitzman wrote.

New York Reuters reviewer Michelle Nichols said the film was generating Oscar buzz in the best picture and best original screenplay categories.

But despite its grand and dazzling scenery, many felt the film was painfully long.

One Boston reviewer wrote that "Australia is a western-war romance-comedy-tragedy-melodrama (feel free to add any more genres that come to mind after you've seen it) that gets a little confusing and runs a little long (about two-and-three-quarter hours). It's at the same time shamelessly manipulative and quite magnificent".

Variety critic Todd McCarthy described the film as "luxurious bumpy ride; like a Rolls-Royce on a rocky country road, it's full of bounces and lurches, but you can't really complain about the seat".

But another US reviewer, Peter Keough, was less reserved, blasting the film as an "epic farce with the goofy tone of Luhrmann's own Strictly Ballroom".

Source: The Age

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