Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good for the AC/DC fan, January 13, 2006
I think maybe only an obsesive AC/DC fan will enjoy this flick. It was a little slow to start, but once it got going I really enjoyed it. The humor is more English, some people may not find it funny, but I laughed out loud for most of it. I definalty recomend it, but you may want to consider renting it first before adding it to your collection.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ashes to Ashes, July 23, 2006
Though I'm Australian, I'm not really that much of a fan of Australian film, or AC/DC. Still, I like movies about rock music, so I had a look at "Thunderstruck". It's a little bit better than I expect, but I wasn't really expecting that much.
The film is about five best mates from Sydney who love AC/DC and are in their own hard rock garage band. They go to a concert of theirs in 1991 and have a great time. While admiring a poster of Bon Scott, the late AC/DC member, the young guys avoid a run in with a car. They take it as a sign, take down the poster of Bon, and make a promise that if any of them does die, then the others would bury them next to Bon Scott in Fremantle, Western Australia. Twelve years later, their band and their friendship is all but broken up. One's now a drug dealer, one works in a supermarket, one still lives with his parents recording demos, one used to be a bouncer, and one's dead, hit by lighting. Yes, you could almost say he was "Thunderstruck"! The guys see this as a sign and remember their promise, reuniting, nabbing the ashes of their mate from his vain ex-wife and head across thousands of kilometres of outback towards Fremantle, to unite their dead friend with his hero. But will they make it?
As in many other Australian films, there are many cameo appearances from Australian celebrities. There's rock group Killing Heidi (playing themselves), there's Quentin Kenihan the wheelchair bound Australian director (who plays a paralympian with road rage), and there's late night host Roy Slaven (who plays a petrol station owner). There may have been some others I didn't recognize in there too.
One of the reasons I don't like Australian film that much is the way everything looks like it was recorded ten years before it actually was. Everything looks so old in this film, which works for the bits set in 1991, but not so much for the modern day bits. I don't know what it is, maybe the lighting or something, but a lot of the locations look all dingy and depressing (like the supermarket where one of the characters works). Australia doesn't exactly look like that, and its not fun or enjoyable picturing a place that does. They give this look to so many Australian films, and it annoys me.
Still, the outback scenes were nicely filmed. The comedy was all right, too. There's a lot of playing on the Australian "bogan" stereotype (kind of like the Australian equivalent of America's "trailer trash", folk who are really rough around the edges). The dialogue, like so often in Australian films/TV/etc seems a little too unnatural at times.
For fans of AC/DC, there are a few references to the band and their music, but not as many as you may expect. It's not so much a film about AC/DC or its fans as it is about friendship, mateship and promises.
Special features include a commentary, deleted scenes and a making of featurette. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Worth at least a little look for AC/DC fans, I suppose. If you're looking for an Australian comedy film, I'd recommend "The Castle" or "The Dish" instead. You get the Australian quirkiness, but you also get a meatier plot too.
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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not What I hoped It Would Be, September 11, 2005
This movie is about a group of friends who go to an AC/DC concert in 1991 and after the show they narrowly avoid death and think that Bon Scott was looking over them. They make a pact that the first one of them to die would be taken by the others to Bon's grave, and be buried next to him. Well, a few years later after they have all gone there separate ways, one of them is struck by lightning - they get back together to take there mates ashes across Australia to be put next to Bon, and have a whacky adventure along the way.
I must say, as an AC/DC fan, this movie does not live up to the hype about it that I hoped for. It has too many low moments, and there attempt at comedy failed in so many areas. It's a movie that should have had better laughs, it had the potential to be a great comedy, but instead they did not go for it. There are a couple of laughs, but nothing really memorable. What does blow goats is that there is only 1 AC/DC tune in the whole film, and thats "Thunderstruck" of coarse. TNT is covered by Hey Seed Dixie, and the boys of the movie do "Long way to the top". Tho you would expect a movie based around the AC/DC theme would contain a lot more.
I think I just got my hopes up too high. I noticed alot of the British fans enjoyed the movie alot more then Australian. So not that it's been released in the USA & Cananda, we'll see which way the scales drop.
Bonus Features: A lot of crap, Audio Commentary, Deleted Scenes, Interviews, Trailer's.. nothing much.
Eggs: A crap one with the boys rapping, and a couple of unfunny bloopers. I cant remember how to find them, but there not worth looking for.
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