Starring: Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Brandon Walters, David Gulpilil
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Category: IIA
Australia has always been known for its fine food and wine and now you can add cheese to the list.
As camp as Priscilla Queen of The Desert, broader than Steve Irwin bellowing 'crikey', and generally making outback machismo as gay as Crocodile Dundee's vest-with-no-shirt look, this 166-minute sprawling epic is so bad it's actually good. With gooey emotions and calorie-rich visuals, Baz Luhrmann's busy homage is pure fromage. In fact, it's a magnificent, continent-sized disaster.
Like Paul Hogan's 1980s hit, it reinforces Aussie stereotypes even as it debunks them. The corny Aboriginal mysticism is so earnest it feels like an addendum to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the indigenous community (the country has a new tourism advertisement co-starring the movie's walkabout narrator, a mixed-blood indigenous boy named Nullah, played by Brandon Walters).