Australia

Rated PG-13

Crikey! Followin’ a fine bite of vegemite, a couple cold amber nectars and some aerial ping-pong, ’ow about let’s hop in our kangaroos an head down to the cinema for a good ole round o’ stereotypin’. What d’ya say, mate?

Don’t expect to see Crocodile Dundee in Baz Luhrmann’s follow-up to 2001’s Moulin Rouge. While any title from Lady Ashley to Faraway Downs would be equally apt, the native Aussie’s Australia is obviously meant as a respectful tribute to his homeland’s history and culture, shinily wrapped in the guise of a big-budget saga.

In 1939, on the brink of WWII, prissy British aristocrat Lady Ashley (Kidman) must learn the ways of the outback if she is to save her late husband’s beef business at Faraway Downs. The beer to her tea is the loner cattle driver Drover (Jackman). The two are impossibly opposite in every way, certainly ill-matched. I’m sure nothing will happen.

Amidst the flirtatious cattle-driving are weighty subplots involving the impending war and white oppression over the native Aboriginals. I can think of at least one other romance taking place in a faraway land at war time. Unfortunately Jackman is no Bogey, and Kidman no Bergman.

The tone of this so-called epic seems to change every act. The silliness of the film detracts from the overall seriousness of the subject matter. The cattle drive recalls City Slickers more than classic Westerns; the final act is a completely unnecessary practice in melodramatic false endings.

Stripped to its skivvies, Australia reveals itself to be little more than a silly western with a fish-out-of-water love story riddled with such innocuous jokes the likes of which seem written for those lacking a (bawdy) sense of humor. I might even venture to call it “cute.”

This perfectly explains my being the youngest member (and minority gender) of the audience. This movie isn’t my kind of “cute,” but it is somebody’s. But where Luhrmann skirts the line between homage and cliche, he often teeters toward the latter, not with Australian culture but instead with Hollywood style.