Tomorrow, When The War Began ***
Although adapted from the first novel in a series by John Marsden about an invasion and occupation of Australia by a ‘foreign power’, you can’t help thinking while watching Tomorrow, When The War Began, “Crickey, the Japanese are coming!” This rather untimely inappropriate and harsh fictional assumption, given recent natural disasters in the Land of the Rising Sun, is further enhanced by the film’s ultra-cool and contemporary cross between Pearl Harbor and The Bridge on the River Kwai – minus the massive film budget, but with all the blockbuster effects.
As in the book, the story is narrated by the main character, an average teenage girl called Ellie (Caitlin Stasey), who goes away on a camping trip with her best friend, Corrie (Rachel Hurd-Wood), and an oddball bunch of companions for a ‘last summer trip’ before school recommences in a remote area ironically nicknamed ‘Hell’. Whilst away, the group gets up to the usual teen antics and discusses the usual teen issues around the campfire. But a few are awoken from their sleep by passing military planes. It’s only when they return home that they discover all is not right in their fictional home town of Wirrawee. Their families are gone and the power is out. To their horror they realise that their homeland has been invaded and occupied by a foreign power that means business, with a never-ending parade of military might. They decide to wage a guerrilla-style war on the enemy with explosive results.
Confusing title aside, Tomorrow, When The War Began is packed with a wobbly plot, some dubious soap-style acting, and implausible set pieces, but it still brings a jubilant smile to the face at the end that the ‘little man’ can find the fighting spirit in the time of need. It isn’t too far-fetched either as a concept, given modern warfare is now often fought on a local, smaller scale. As world events show, nothing seems completely off the radar at present.
Admittedly, those who know the book well might differ in opinion, but the film which intentionally chooses action over words still triggers some healthy topical debate on how war is perceived by the youth of today, and what value it brings. It mixes these thoughts with that delightful brand of self-depreciating and sarcastic Aussie humour, making it a uniquely refreshing action flick with a younger stance.
Stasey as Ellie gives the story its substance and purpose, necessary to see the physical and emotional change that each teen must adopted. She does this with total and unfaltering conviction that she’s easy to get behind. But she still shows Ellie’s vulnerable side, procrastinating over kissing a boy, without making her into some younger, tooled-up version of Terminator’s Sarah Connor. Indeed there are some engaging conflicting moments to her character as she gets propelled into a leadership position. However, apart from Hurd-Wood, the rest of the cast simply make up the teen body count of extreme views, lifestyles and ethnicities that revolve around Ellie in her ‘new world’, and are never really fully developed, given the timescale, aside from snatched moments of 15 seconds of fame, before their very own ‘mission’ begins. Presumably, fans of the book might take issue with how their characters have been made more two-dimensional in this.
Sure to thrill those watching is writer/director Stuart Beattie’s obsession with ‘monster vehicles’ smashing up the town and scattering ‘baddies’ aplenty. If it’s not a dustcart, it’s a ‘rigged tanker bomb’ – all of which (incredulously) Ellie can operate because she’s ‘driven a tractor’ on the family farm. The action is brazenly explosive and designed to arouse, more so as it’s a bunch of teens in the thick of it, showing some patriotism that many older cynics may think is lacking in the apathetic ‘yoof of today’.
At the end of the day, the war may have started, but this armed group has some unfinished business to attend to, paraded like action heroes at the end, then accompanied by some comic-book credits. So, TWTWB shamelessly sets itself up for a possible sequel. And if it’s not in the bag already, the film-makers will get it because TWTWB captures the imagination and a sense of purpose, with its quite unique brief and attractive and armed-to-the-teeth young characters that gaming fans (evoked by the film’s score in parts), in particular, can get behind and heartily cheer on. Girl Power has been reborn and reinvented to cultivate a cult following, here.
3/5 stars
By @FilmGazer
