Review of Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010) by Gavin S — 23 Sep 2010

Flickr failed me with this movie, I saw that 80% of critics liked it and I thought sure, I'll watch it. I was disappointed to find out that the title was the best thing about the movie. I thought it would be an epic about futuristic, war, when it turned out to be a poorly constructed Australian teenage chic flick with an attempt to appeal to guys. When me and my friend first walked into the cinema we thought that we had entered the wrong cinema, to our disappointment, after talking to the clerk, we found that the cinema was correct, the movie was just bad. This movie reinforces the ideas that all Australian movies aren't worth wasting money on.

The acting and characters were both terrible, it looked like a job done by amateurs, this was exemplified by the scene where Ellie is threatening Chris. There were too many characters (7), all of them with too little depth. It may work for a large novel, but not for a short movie. The dialogue was painful most of the time, all monologues failed, such as the introduction of Chris and when Homer asks everyone to start guerrilla tactics, due to both poor script and poor execution.

To explain the invasion of Australia they have one line where the kids listen to the radio (which previously wasn't working) and find out that Australia had been invaded by a coalition of forces due to the small population and large resources of Australia, yet the faces of all the enemies are Asian, including the one with which Ellie has a moment which although mentioned as a girl really could have been a guy. The inclusion of Lee and the harming of his parents seems to be a ploy by John Marsden to pretend that this movie isn't racist. The nod to the British invasion of Aboriginal Australia was also poorly executed.