Australia Review

Australia is a sweeping action/romance set in the Australian province/state of the Northern Territories. Dances With Wolves is a sweeping action/romance film set in the Dakota Territory. The two films have many things in common, not the least of which is that they are both entertaining.

However, in its day, Dances With Wolves carved new ground, showing the natives from a perspective never seen in mainstream films. Australia combines set pieces from the old American West and classic war films, and threads in a romance in the dusty rough-and-tumble Australian outback. Just like in Dances With Wolves, Australia uses the mysticism and rituals of the natives and shows them in a new, more reverential, light.

Australia is really two nearly full-length films combined into one really long film (two hours and 45 minutes). The first half is the cattle drive, similar to what you've seen in many westerns. The newly arrived English aristocrat landowner, Sarah Ashley (Nichole Kidman), her husband freshly murdered, is convinced that she must get her cattle to the city. Drover (Hugh Jackman) is just the man to do it. For good measure, Drover is short of manpower, so Lady Ashley volunteers to help drive the cattle, along with a rag-tag group that includes another woman and a young half-caste Aboriginal boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters). The group faces hardships, including some caused by the film's bad guy, Australian cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown).

The second half of Australia switches to a war romance, as the Japanese attack the Australian city of Darwin early in World War II. This involves Nullah being sent off to one of the vile "missions" that the Australian government established for half-caste children. (It helps that I watched the excellent movie Rabbit-proof Fence a few months ago, as that film highlighted this sad aspect of Australian history.)

Will Nullah die when the mission is attacked by the Japanese? Can Lady Ashley and Drover survive the attack on Darwin? Will war force the budding family apart even before it gets started?

I enjoyed Australia, even if it was predictable and seemed strung together from ideas snatched from 100 years of previous films. For one thing, the first half of the film (the cattle drive half) was laced with a surprising amount of humor. In fact, it was much funnier than I expected, even if the entire plot for the first half could have been lifted from the movie City Slickers.

The second half of the film was less funny and therefore less fun. It reminded me of the recent war film Pearl Harbor. What held both halves of Australia together was Nullah, the half-white/half-Aborigine boy whose wild side is calling him to the vast Australian outback. Somewhere in the outback is Nullah's grandfather, King George (David Gulpilil), to guide Nullah on the path to become a man.

Overall, the acting was very good, the scenery was superb and the quality of filmmaking was outstanding. Australia attempts to be one of those sweeping action/romance films along the lines of Gone With the Wind or... Dances With Wolves. Australia mostly succeeds, although you can see the pieces clicking into place more jarringly than you could in those two earlier films.

Australia has lots of passionate kissing, a bit of rough language and a few seconds of bedroom activity with sheets draped artfully. Rated PG-13, the film is fine for 14-year-olds and older.

Long enough to watch in two sittings, Australia is entertaining... even if it walks in the path of more highly acclaimed earlier films. I give it a strong 3.5 stars, rounding up to four.