Most reviews of 'Australiens' seem to mention 'Shaun of the Dead.' So I thought I'd get the similarities out of the way straight away. In 'Shaun' you have a group of losers fighting zombies. 'Australiens' is effectively a group of losers fighting Aliens (wait... wasn't that the plot of 'The World's End?'). And it's set in Australia - in case the title didn't tip you off.
I love a good B-movie. If I'm in the mood for something silly and cheesy I really don't care about special effects, great acting or reinventing the (movie) wheel. However, after the opening 5-10 minutes of 'Australiens' I was actually on the brink of turning it off. You see... the beginning focuses on the child incarnations of our (soon to be) heroes. And the kids are super-annoying. I don't like to be mean to children, but the three of them can't act. And it's quite painful to watch.
Fortunately, this only takes up the first 5-10 minutes of the film and we're soon thrust into the present day where adults take over acting duties. And, as I mentioned, an alien attack focuses on Australia and our bunch of drop-outs have to sort it out. It was at this point where the film picks up.
The first thing I noticed was that I was starting to laugh. Not all the time, but here and there. Obviously, this film never takes itself seriously and a big part of it is humour. However, in most 'comedy' films I watch the humour seems to be consistent - and when I say 'consistent' I mean all the gags are in turn with each other. However, here it's like there are about five or six different senses of humour on display here (like having five writers all taking it in turns to write a joke, then handing laugh-duties over to the next one). Therefore, the humour on display is kind of random and I can only liken it to 'Family Guy' style.
The acting is bad. Now, I don't know any of the actors in the lead roles, but I'm guessing they were told to 'ham it up.' Normally bad acting is a negative, but somehow here it actually works. As do the special effects. Which aren't that special. Don't expect anything amazing here. They really are pretty cheap-looking which gives it a real 'made-for-TV' feel to it.
Yes, it's a B-movie, but it knows it is. If you're expecting something truly epic and ground-breaking then you won't find it here. However, if you like total silliness and are particularly forgiving then give this one a go. Just sit back, don't think too much and let its totally random humour take you. 'Shaun of the Dead' it isn't, but it isn't bad either.
