It’s funny, the first thing I’ve gotta say of this is, after all I’d heard and read from others about the movie, I genuinely expected it to be far more ridiculous than it ultimately struck me. As it turns out, this movie is just about exactly what I expected when it first began to be talked about, is it almost 2 years ago now? I also kind of expected it to be a lot longer than it was – is 2hrs 40 minutes really considered crazy long again now?

The section in between the whole cattle drive and the bombing is clearly the part that makes people feel the movie is overlong and I’d agree at least on that whole sequence. The movie feels so over once they get the bloody bulls on the big metal ship that it kind of reminded me of the act break in something like “Into the Woods” on stage. The children’s island mission party scene, then, is like the “I’m so happy you’re so happy” song that opens act 2 there. My mum commented on how the movie kept feeling like it was ending … I really can’t say I got this feeling enough to make it an issue. I really did just get swept up by this as much as I’d hoped months and months ago but genuinely never expected as the time came to sit down and actually watch it. Jackman might quite easily make it into my special little J’s list (Johnny, Josh, Joseph … you get the picture ), Kidman is in least-annoying mode, the kid is beautiful, the music and visuals fantastic … I really simply can’t imagine how anybody thinks it could be better. Most of all, it’s far from ridiculous. It’s heightened, and old-fashioned – but that’s Luhrmann … that, I expected. The “Wizard of Oz” references complete the marvelousness.