NOTE TO READERS: I did not see the finished version. So if you are one of those people that isn’t interested in hearing about an unfinished film, I would avoid this review.
I was lucky enough to attend a test screening of Stuart Beattie’s upcoming epic Australian movie Tomorrow When The War Began based on the best selling novel of the same name by author John Marsden.
The version of the film I saw was “in early days”, but it didn’t look that far from complete. It had a temp musical score and soundtrack and some unfinished computer effects, the movie however, seemed to have a focus on practical effects, so it didn’t really matter.
It had a running time of about 2 hours. It felt like it should have been longer.
The story is about a group of teenagers who go out into the wild on a camping trip, to a beautiful clearing in the middle of nowhere ironically named “hell”. When they return they find their town; Wirrawee, in ruin after a full scale invasion, the place is infested with the enemy- whom we never know, with all their parents being held hostage, and strike bombings and whatnot…it is intense.
The film was excellent, but flawed. With a bit of tweaking here and there it could very well be an Australian classic and…a franchise! This review will have spoilers soon, so If you are not interested in spoilers then I’ll give you a really brief rundown of my thoughts:
For the most part I loved Tomorrow, when the war began… it is well written, very well shot, and Caitlin Stasey in the lead as Ellie was excellent. There is a bit of mis-casting and bad acting from the others, and the beginning and end scenes and others felt rushed (the 20 minutes of ‘Hell’- what they name the place they go camping- was awful)…but… they could still change all of these before the film is out, and it will be great.
The action scenes in the movie are the best to come out of Australia for a while and rival any Hollywood film of late. It feels epic in scope, and technically it was wonderful.
So the following will be spoiler filled! You have been warned…
I was incredibly surprised by the film. I had read the book back in the day for school and liked it quite a bit, I didn’t continue to read the rest of the series though, but I did remember the book fairly well and the film seemed to stay true to the novel.
From my memory of the book, it felt like a page by page retelling.
The only major difference was one I could understand: Instead of Ellie narrating the story through a diary, she does so through a video camera. A clever decision that lets you know from the opening of the movie that Stuart Beattie’s adaptation of the book was going to be a visual one. And it is, very much so.
The only other change is that they do not return to Hell to hide out after the excavator scene. They instead hide out inside Chris Lang’s house – A section/character that isn’t in book one – but I’m told it is from the second book. All the Ellie and Lee stuff takes place at the Chris home instead.
The film opened very quickly, giving us a quick little set of scenes to set up everybody’s character and off they go to camp in hell. The version of the film I saw rushed the introduction of all the characters, and didn’t really give you the immediate sense of them that you would have liked, but overall it was fresh and speedy and got them on the way to ‘Hell’ quickly. They soundtrack we heard was temp but it would be great if they were able to keep ACDC ‘Highway to Hell’ in this spot. As on the nose it was It kind of worked.
So it’s really enjoyable up to this point, even if it could be longer. Then ‘Hell’ happens. 10-20 or so minutes were spent in hell and it felt too long. The cast doesn’t really have a good chemistry when they are all together so it felt awkward and staged. I didn’t buy them as friends. Here the film stoops to slow motion bikinis, and wet bodies and football and blah. Felt forced and stilted. The parts here were just awful, the Lee and Ellie stuff being incredibly bad.
So here is where you start to get an idea of the cast and how good they are/ are going to be. I’m just going to break them down briefly:
Caitlin Stassey: plays lead role Ellie Linton. Thought she was excellent. Fantastic actually. (except for when with Lee – but more on that later).
Phoebe Tonkin: plays Fiona Maxwell. Thought she was good. She exists as the perve factor but played the role well regardless.
Lincoln Lewis: plays Kevin Holmes: Was not good, overacts and doesn’t suit the character at all. He had a lot of screen-time, and was just plain bad.
Rachel Hurd-Wood: plays Corrie. Good, not outstanding or memorable though. The thing with the movie is that it has a lot of characters it needs to juggle and some just don’t get the attention they deserve. Corrie is one of them. It could all change if they extend the movie though. She and Kevin don’t really share any chemistry. She is the most well known of the cast (for her role in Perfume, and especially as Wendy in the 2003 Peter Pan). She is a promising young actress.
Ashleigh Cummings: plays Robyn. Was excellent, the only problem is that she is about a foot shorter than the rest of the cast, and looks several years younger. It constantly destroys the believability of the movie – she was very good though – just unfortunately not suited for this film, as good as she is in it.
Chris Pang: plays Lee, Ellie’s Love interest. Now Pang is horrible in this film. He plays the love interest of Ellie, and is integral to the plot. Every line sounds like it is being read out loud and he and Stassey share no chemistry what so ever.
So much of the film is built around this chemistry/ relationship and it is just not there. Horrible casting here, and it ruins the entire ‘emotional’ arc of the story- I’m afraid no amount of editing is going to fix this. They should just delete the subplot entirely – and they might. Their scene together in Hell where they kiss is just awful in how forced it is. Another scene in the house of Chris, is awful as well. They need to be cut down significantly – they are literally the only holes in the movie that I feel can’t be fixed in the final version.
Deniz Akdeniz: plays Homer. Look I’m unsure about Homer. I found him to be incredibly annoying, but that might be what they were going for with the character. He gets more tolerable as the film goes on, but then again as you know, he ends up becoming the leader character, and it makes a lot of sense to have him annoying at that start so that you see that change.
But holy crap, he was annoying. I suppose he is there for the female audience to fawn over. Just like his love interest Fiona is meant to for the men. These two have great chemistry – and they get a fair share of screen time.
Andrew Ryan: plays Chris Lang. Chris was a character I loved. Ryan is excellent in the role, and is hilarious. He can also play the intense stuff. He had what felt the perfect amount of screen time. He has a great confrontational scene with Stassey that was electric and was definitely the high point of the film for me.
Overall the cast is very hit and miss. When it works; it works incredibly well. Colin Friels shows up at one point as a dentist, and is excellent with his incredibly short cameo, but when the casting in the movie fails it does so badly. Ultimately the majority of the movie is so good that these few casting decisions could either be fixed in the final version, or wind up as just minor setbacks.
Now lets talk about Stuart Beattie, the writer and director of the movie. Beattie, just seems to get it. For me he is the real star of the movie. Beattie taking all the knowledge he learned from being the screenwriter of Pirates of the Caribbean, Collateral, and Australia to name a few, nails the movie.
Outside of the twenty minutes of Hell, Beattie works magic. The film is epic in scale, and to be truthful, if the film didn’t have Australian accents you would not be able to tell the difference between this and an American film. It is pristinely shot, and Beattie moves the camera with energy. There are vistas of destruction, and beauty. The moment where the group look over at night and see the invasion in process is just beautiful.
A lot needs to be said about the action. It’s so visceral and engaging. It rivals Hollywood in it’s balls. The scene where some of the group transport the injured Lee in the catcher of a construction excavator truck, whilst being chased by the enemy, is thrilling. And its all done real.
The other action highlight is Ellie with the ride on lawnmower, which was exactly how you would picture it in the novel. EXACTLY. Also when they are in (Homer’s I think) house, and there are bombers out and about searching for survivors to capture, and they see the light from inside. And of course the big bridge scene at the end (this felt a bit rushed – but I’m sure they will fix this up with the final version).
There is a lot of action, and it’s pretty much excellent and thrilling the whole time. Beattie doesn’t step a foot wrong with this aspect. And it’s saying a lot too, when the film can actually slow down for huge chunks of screen time and not feel boring. Beattie juggles the character and action very well. He has taken his great screenwriting talent, and written a really solid adaptation that only falters because of some of the casting. The script itself is fine, and I bet thats because by know he knows in and out what the audience of this big blockbuster responds to. It’s a story that requires a real balance of tone to get it right, and Beattie has something – if the film gets a really good musical score, issues I had with the movie could almost be soiled over.
The only other issue I had with the movie was it had an incredibly rushed ending. It was unbelievably anti-climactic and weak. They blow up the bridge. Kevin goes off to drive Corrie to hospital. Then the other characters ride off into the next movie on motor bikes. End. And it literally is as quick as it takes to read that. Hopefully they draw out the climax a bit, because it felt a little too quick and rushed.
Other than those small nitpicks, and bad castings, Tomorrow When The War Began is a very solid film, and does service to the novel – It’s thrilling, well shot, and has a really strong lead performance from Caitlin Stassey. Paramount Studios have a huge hit on their hands, that should also do well over seas.
I hope the best for the film and it would be great to see Australia have it’s own franchise film. Even though the Ellie and Lee stuff is the only really Horrible parts, everything is is really, really solid, and could be fixed up due to the results of the test screening. If the movie stays the same as it was when I saw it I would rate it a 7 out of 10.
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