Australia (2008) **

I should have been leery when I heard that the Australian Tourism Board helped finance this film. That's never a good sign. But the idea was promising and since it featured actual Australians I felt confident in a good, original film. That could never be further from the truth.

Australia is about an English "Lady" (Nicole Kidman) who travels to the continent thinking that her husband is fooling around at his cattle far. That could not be further from the truth- he's been murdered. With the help of "The Drover" (Hugh Jackman) she needs to drive the cattle into port so that she can save the ranch from the super cattle rancher that surrounds her property (played by Bryan Brown). Of course all of this is set against the major operations of the Japanese army in the South Pacific during World War II.

So what's my beef with Australia? I have to start by asking one question:

Have you ever seen Gone with the Wind?

This is the Australian version. Only this time there's no real direction.

True, the scenery is magnificent and Luhrman makes great use of his native topography, the film suffers from a stolen story and direction that is less than stellar. Everyone either over acts or underacts in this predictable film and it slowly becomes a parody of itself. The running time is also an issue and could have been easily resolved by condensing and combing both parts of the film. Just because your movie's long doesn't make it an epic.

At the end of the day I'm sure the film will achieve what it was financed to do- bring in a bunch of tourists who saw the film and wanted to visit the majestic Australian continent. Beyond that the film is basically fluff stuff to get to the National Geographic shots.