The director Gregor Jordan’s approach to the material is fairly pedestrian, turning the film into heavily fictionalised Robin Hood romanticism, but Ledger’s charisma lures us in.

| Sep 12, 2022

Ultimately, Jordan's vision is so murky that Ned Kelly remains as foreign to us as wombat stew.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 14, 2004

If Ned Kelly is supposed to be an anti-hero to root for, his speeches border on parody and his cause is really unclear.

Full Review | Mar 29, 2004

A leaden retelling of the legend of Australia's Jesse James that has understandably been sitting on the shelf for a couple of years.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 26, 2004

A handsome, action-packed biographical drama with a credibility gap wider than the screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 26, 2004

Ledger, talking into his chest for much of the film in an apparent effort to lend gravity to his performance, is pretty stiff, but so is Jordan's direction.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 26, 2004

To get swept up by the hagiographic treatment and to be all that interested in every nuance of this fellow's development, one might really need to be Australian.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 26, 2004

Monotonous and drags toward the end.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 25, 2004

There is a potent national epic struggling to find expression here, but this movie is too rushed and fragmented to do it justice.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 25, 2004

A highly formal and conventional film that is too often merely ponderous when it should be stirring.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 25, 2004

Fans of American Westerns will find plenty to like, so long as they can get their heads around the accents and the occasional wombat.

| Original Score: B | Mar 25, 2004

Manages to shrink the grandness of the myth without clarifying our understanding of the man.

| Original Score: B- | Mar 25, 2004

Marks a welcome departure from the usual rah-rah machismo of the semi-nationalist action adventure, but Jordan never escapes the mighty shadow of The Thin Red Line.

| Mar 23, 2004

Think Braveheart Down Under-an impossibly masturbatory, unilateral act of hero worship.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 3, 2004

An unkempt, enjoyable retelling of the life story of an Australian legend.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 24, 2003

A wannabe Western epic that never quite fills the widescreen, but is quite lovely around the fringes. A bit like Australia.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 31, 2003

The handsome, meticulously produced picture ... impresses for its rigorous recreation of the period and its refusal to turn the Kelly legend into horse opera.

Full Review | Mar 28, 2003

A striking, stately and ultimately deeply moving experience.

Full Review | Mar 20, 2003