‘Australia’: Giddyap for long slog

Presumably, Baz Luhrmann could not decide whether to make an old-fashioned Western or a war film.

Hey, he must have said, let's do both! And let's throw in a little "Wizard of Oz," too!

The unhappy result, "Australia," feels exactly like an old-fashioned Western with a war film tacked on at the end. It's at least an hour too long (everything that comes after the climactic cattle drive is unnecessary, although the war footage at least is well-made), and it threatens audience whiplash as it lurches from one genre to another.

Luhrmann wants to show the history of his native Australia in the 20th century in one movie, which is certainly ambitious, if wrongheaded. In a single epic he attempts to portray the taming of the Wild, Wild North, the institutionalized racism against children who were half-white and half-Aborigine, and the effects of World War II.

Even in a movie that is more than 2½ hours long, that is too much. Especially when the tone shifts as violently as the subject.

The first part of the movie, which is its most dreadful part, introduces Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, an uptight British aristocrat who comes to Australia to sell her ranch and end her husband's philandering ways. Once in Australia, she meets her opposite, a brawling, rough-and-tumble horseman called The Drover, played by Hugh Jackman.

"I always wanted to mate an English thoroughbred with a bush brumby [a wild horse]," he says, hoping we might possibly catch his double meaning. When she takes offense, he says, "I wouldn't have it on with you if you were the last tart in Australia."

Guess what happens.

In this first section, Luhrmann directs with his tongue in both cheeks, which is difficult to pull off, so he fails. He begins with each character as a stereotype, and then he exaggerates the characters from there. Add his usual flamboyance behind the camera and you are left with a film that tries far too hard to be fun.

Luhrmann calms down, though, for the cattle drive, which is straightforward and generic and not terribly interesting. Still, it has a sense of narrative movement, which is more notable for being absent in the rest of the film. The period between the cattle drive and World War II is a total waste, and then comes the war, which has all the drama of any war film.

For five or 10 minutes toward the end, Luhrmann even remembers how to make a movie again. But then, like so many others, he forgets how to end.

Kidman is absolutely terrible for the first half-hour or so, but her performance improves as her character becomes more human. The frequently shirtless Jackman is better, but it helps when his character, too, moves away from being such a cartoon.

Adding to the confusion is David Hirschfelder's score, which sounds specifically American during the cattle drive and which borrows liberally from "Over the Rainbow" and the Bach hymn "Sheep May Safely Graze."

"Over the Rainbow" makes sense, sort of, if you force it. But "Sheep May Safely Graze" when we're looking at a bunch of cows?