[MOVIE] go wirrawee wolverines!

[reverancepavane]

I had a free ticket* to the preview of the new Australian movie Tomorrow: When The War Begins, the first movie based on the popular young adult series by John Marsden. For those unfamiliar with the series, a group of youths go on a camping trip in the middle of the Blue Mountains, only to return to discover that Australia has been invaded by a coalition of imaginary Asian countries seeking to "reequalise economic prosperity and population distribution throughout the region." With their parents interred in a concentration camp, they decide that they have to begin a guerilla campaign to drive the enemy from our sea-girt shores. Watch on YouTube But this is not a patriotic flight of fancy like Red Dawn. It's about a group of kids suddenly dropped into a situation where they are very unsure of themselves and whether they can actually do what they intend to do. Especially since none of them have any real training to rely on (the implication is that the bulk of the enemy forces are also untrained conscripts, making it a learning process on both sides). To this end the ensemble cast do an excellent job. This is really a group of talented young actors. And all rather pretty to boot. <grin> As for the military sequences, I had fun counting the number of mistakes they made by emulating movies and television, but then, that is rather appropriate. Although the enemy making the same sort of mistakes for the sake of the movie narrative (otherwise it would have been a very short movie) was a bit uncomfortable. Although in the original series, we are apparently saved by the New Zealand armed forces which probably does go a long way to making this a military fantasy of epic proportions. Still, all in all, it was a quite enjoyable film, with lots of good humour. At least until the Bad Guys invade. [* Although I am curious as to why this movie was being promoted by the National Science Week. I also felt rather uncomfortable about the Yellow peril threat portrayed by the movie. Although it is true that Australia is, given the concentration of the population in urban centres and decrease in rural population, ridiculously easy to invade (although probably an interesting exercise in logistics to hold).

Comments

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

I remember reading the books and automatically changing 'Wirrawee' to 'Warrawee' which was the primary school my Dad went to :-P

[reverancepavane.livejournal.com]

"Hhhmmmmmm," says Professor Freud. "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."<grin> Like most YA fiction, even if they were extant at the time I was a YA, I missed these books totally. Then again, given the subject matter I probably would have intentionally missed them anyway. Then again, I spent most of my actual YA years doing this stuff for real (or at least, learning how to do so and practising the necessary skills) under people who had seen the sharp end in Vietnam, so any innate romanticism about war was not something I overly indulged in.