The Emu War

To my utter shame I managed to watch for ten minutes. I can only hope all those involved in the making of this, Trump of a movie, can find gainful employment elsewhere. It's so bad I thought it was a sequel to Pearl Harbour (2001). It really needs a health warning!

Did you consult Mother Theresa by medium for military advice? Has your Emu advisor seen any animal... ever? In the world? Pictures of animals? The only thing that could be called half decent was the wobble-board player. He'll go far.... further the better, to distance himself from the trauma of having participated.

You took a really funny story and killed it, with less mercy than the real thing. Worst idea since Dame Edna Everidge failed to replace Sean Connery as James Bond.

The Great Emu War was a real historical event! Emus are the second largest bird in the world, and they're only found in Australia! Not attractive with the haggy grey-brown and black plumage with blue-black skin around their neck, they have few natural predators.

The formal campaign known as the 'Emu War' commenced in November 1932. Two soldiers, Sergeant S. McMurray and Gunner J. O'Halloran, along with their commanding officer, Major G. P. W. Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery, were dispatched to the operational area. They were armed with two Lewis light machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition, with the aim of executing a mass extermination of the emu population. However, after a week of efforts, progress was minimal. An army observer remarked on the emus' behavior, noting that "each pack seems to have its own leader now: a big black-plumed bird which stands fully six feet high and keeps watch while his mates carry out their work of destruction and warns them of our approach."

During each confrontation, the emus sustained significantly fewer losses than anticipated. By November 8, the death toll ranged from 50 to several hundred birds. Major Meredith praised the emus for their remarkable resilience against gunfire, stating, "If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world. They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks." The campaign was fraught with mistakes and ultimately fell short of its objectives. Furthermore, as reported by The Sunday Herald in 1953, "the incongruity of the whole thing even had the effect, for once, of arousing public sympathy for the emu."

This film portrays these real events in a Mel Brooks manner that resonates with individuals enjoying a strong beer in a local pub after a long day of sheep shearing under the intense Australian sun.

While the production may have been absurd yet humorous, technically lacking, it garnered little concern from viewers who were entertained by a rather unappealing portrayal of a "hot" threesome, accompanied by CGI that resembled the work of a five-year-old during recess, a "pissed" PM, a guy on a sheep, and a depiction of authentic Australian parenting... where parents get involved with the kids for the family BBQ's only!

This was poor in quality, yet it was intentionally so, and that intentionality was nearly flawlessly executed! I genuinely appreciated this peculiar comedy from Downunder! As trashy and unhinged as you could hope for!

Juvenile, pathetic and not funny

I agree with the comments made by reddfivepublishing, which I now summarise, as I could not improve upon them. 100% spot on!

• I sat at the back of the cinema waiting for the film to find a rhythm to its madness or a single joke that landed, and it never happened.

• one of the most fundamentally lazily written films I've seen in a very long time.

• The entirety of The Emu War is the same joke repeated again and again "let's tell an unintentionally unfunny gag which is so dumb and lowbrow that the audience will appreciate the irony".

• despite the sincere efforts of the filmmakers, it seems like an improv comedy group decided to frantically pull out the most juvenile gags they could and stuffed it onto the page.

• The Emu War doesn't have a script. It doesn't have a story.

• It has and endless surplus of dialogue which the filmmakers seem to think are jokes, many of which are flashbacks seemingly designed to distract from the fact that the story is absent and bereft of movement. I could forgive this if the movie was funny because it aspires to be a comedy more than anything, but I couldn't find a single good thing to write about.

• To its credit, the visual effects in The Emu War are pretty decent.

• And the cast give it a very sincere effort, even if the material they're working with isn't pristine.

• films typically have narrative, script and storytelling etiquette to go with them. Those are three things, among many, many others, which are completely absent from The Emu War.

• it's a silly little film made by a bunch of people who just wanted to have a good time, but I didn't have anything close to a good time watching it.

• All I could say was "Gallipoli was funnier".

The only other reviewer (roddraper-227-22177) must be associated with the film or the filmmakers to have given it a 9 out of 10.

75 minutes of my life wasted that I can never get back. You have been warned!

Looking at the other reviews, apparently this movie came into contact with the wrong kind of audience.

Of course it is stupid, of course it's dumb, and messy and over top! Have you read the description? It's about going to war with emus... What did you expect?

It is not a sharp biting commentary on bureaucracy, with fleshed out characters or well-written dialogue or big budget birds, or relatable situations. It never claimed to be. And if you went into this expecting something like that, you are lost, very lost. Please find the nearest exit, you are definitely in the wrong place.

It is juvenile, nonsensical, chaotic and most of all silly.

Go watch it with friends. Don't watch it if you're looking for anything that's historically accurate or thought-provoking or realistic.

I hope this helps.

Now, with products like this hitting screens IMDB needs to introduce negative ratings.

This appalling, cheap, nasty and uselessly abysmal attempt at a film needs to be called out for what it is.

Absolute trash, a massive embarrasment and major cringe for the Australian movie industry.

It really is that bad... A pathetic, misfiring attempt at cross referencing Australian historical figures into a "humerous" reimagining of the Emu Wars, (an actual thing in Australian history), however it is extrely likely that everyone involved in this disgraceful rubbish will be drawing their dole cheques from Centrelink for the forseeable future.

An embarassment to Australian movie making that hopefully will die and rot under a rock sooner rather than later.

Don't encourage them, avoid like the plague.