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Reviews
Ned Kelly (2003)
Flat, dull and workmanlike
I saw this at the premiere in Melbourne
It is shallow, two-dimensional, unaffecting and, hard to believe given the subject matter, boring. The actors are passable, but they didn't have much to work with given the very plodding and unimpressive script. For those who might have worried that Ned Kelly would be over-intellectualised, you can take comfort in the fact that this telling of the story is utterly without any literary depth at all, told entirely on the surface and full of central casting standards. However, it doesn't work as a popcorn film either. Its pacing is too off-kilter and its craft is too lacking to satisfy even on the level of a mundane actioner.
I very much doubt Gregor Jordan could sit back and say to himself "this is the best I could have done with the material".
Ned Kelly is a fascinating figure, and equally so is the national response to him. Possibly folk genius, possibly class warrior, possibly psychopath and probably all these things, he has dominated Australian true mythology for over 120 years. Once again, his story has failed miserably on the big screen.
Such is life.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
A pathetic pastiche of half-baked ideas
Moulin Rouge is a massive waste of time and money, and you should waste neither of yours on it.
It is all at once juvenile, under developed, terribly scripted, poorly acted, woefully unfunny, singularily unsexy and, most importantly of all, hideously directed by someone who, time and time again, demonstrates that he doesn't know when to take his foot off the accelerator.
What constantly amazes me is that such ridiculous out of control rubbish as this is seen as an example of some sort of new cinema. It isn't. It's just bad cinema. Baz Lurhmann has, like lots of other ambitious amateurs, a sort of "horror vacui". He has absolutely no comprehension of what to leave out, so he just throws it all in an attempt to cover up the fact that he doesn't know what he is doing.
Please, please, please if you enjoyed this swill, watch the following as some sort of remedial treatment course to see what the TRUE masters of glorious excess are capable of. Watch Busby Berkeley. Watch Vincente Minelli. Watch Ken Russell (anyone who sniggers at that suggestion yet can still embrace Lurhmann is kidding themselves). Watch Dennis Potter. Watch Bob Fosse. Watch (selected) Alan Parker. Don't accept pale imitations!!!
Above all, probably the biggest crime of this film is what could have been. The milieu is so fantastic that to have it vandalised in such a mediocre way is truly heartbreaking.