AUSTRALIA is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II. In it, an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local (Hugh Jackman) and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world’s most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. With his new film, Baz Luhrmann is painting on a vast canvas, creating a cinematic experience that brings together romance, drama, adventure and spectacle.
Baz Luhrmann dreamed of making the Australian “Gone With the Wind,” and so he has, with much of that film’s lush epic beauty and some of the same awkwardness with a national legacy of racism. This is the sort of film described as a “sweeping romantic melodrama,” a broad family entertainment that would never have been made without the burning obsession of its producers. Coming from a director known for his punk-rock “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” and the visual pyrotechnics of “Moulin Rouge,” it is exuberantly old-fashioned, and I mean that as a compliment. – Roger Ebert
Starring Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown, David Wenham.
Rated PG-13.