It is a compilation of every Australian cliche you could imagine - dusty outback scenes, exaggerated accents, blackfellas, boomerangs, even Rolf Harris and his idiosyncratic wobble board. Baz Luhrmann's anxiously awaited romantic epic Australia, the most expensive film in the country's history, had its world premiere today, receiving mixed reviews amid concerns it might not be the international box-office hit everybody had hoped for.
"The word 'crikey' is spouted so often the film often sounds like a tribute to Steve Irwin," said Jim Schembri of the Melbourne Age. "Luhrmann also seems so eager to trowel on the Aussie cliches - obviously to appeal to the tourist markets! - that Australia is often simply irritating."
With a budget of US$130m (£86m) and an A-list cast including Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, Luhrmann's new movie is the most expensive, most ambitious and most hyped film ever made in Australia.
Expectations riding on the film are high - its makers hope that it will revive the country's near-dormant film industry, save the ailing tourist market and tempt big-name directors to Australia - but the country's leading film reviewers are already saying it is too long and does not live up to the hype.
Giving his verdict, veteran ABC critic David Stratton said: "It's not the masterpiece we had hoped for ... Visually, it's very handsome, but Hugh Jackman says 'crikey' and 'mate' a lot and I think this film is made primarily for an eye on the international market, in particular an American audience."
The film tells the story of an aristocratic Brit (Kidman), who inherits an outback sheep station and has to save it by steering a herd of cattle across the country with the help of a man known only as The Drover, played by Jackman. Against the backdrop of the second world war the couple, of course, fall in love along the way. They also meet an Aboriginal boy, who provides a neat excuse to incorporate a storyline about the Stolen Generation.
Luhrmann, who only finished editing the film 48 hours prior to its screening after he was forced by the studio to give the film a "happy ending", admitted he feels "under a lot of pressure".
"[Bad reviews] are not the most comfortable thing but we have given it our all. We've done our best and now it's out in the world," said Luhrmann, who went $20m over budget. Likening it to Gone with the Wind or Out of Africa, Luhrmann, the creative genius behind Moulin Rouge!, said he hoped people would still be watching it in 50 years.
Twentieth Century Fox studio executives hope so too, and have launched an ambitious marketing strategy aimed at toppling Titanic as the highest grossing film ever. They also want it to take home a swag of Oscars. To live up to Titanic's 1997 record, the sweeping outback epic will need to snare US$1.8bn.
Today's premiere in Sydney saw scenes of Titanic proportions as the city's central business district came to a standstill, its major streets closed to traffic.
Stars Kidman and Jackman tripped down the 135metre-long red carpet, lined with hundreds of fans. Kidman reluctantly left baby Sunday Rose in Tennessee with a nanny for 24 hours while she attended the premiere with husband Keith Urban. She thanked Luhrmann - "her creative soulmate" - for giving her the rare opportunity to play a female lead in a homegrown movie, saying it was "a once in a lifetime film".
"Baz gets offered everything - and he chose to make a film here using Australian cast and crew and giving it his all," said Kidman while waiting to see the film for the first time with 3,000 others.
"This is a celebration for me and hopefully for this country. It's not meant to be the Second Coming. It's meant to be, 'Let's have some fun and enjoy it.'"
She said she wasn't worried about criticism of her performance because there was life after acting. "I may just choose to have some more children," Kidman said.
The Australian tourism industry, which recorded a 7.6% fall in overseas tourists in September, is hoping the real star of the show will be the country itself. It is banking on Australia doing what Lord of the Rings did for New Zealand, or what Crocodile Dundee did two decades ago.
Tourism Australia has invested in a A$20m campaign in 22 countries, including two ads directed by Luhrmann that piggyback off the film. Industry group Tourism and Transport Forum's managing director Christopher Brown said that even if the movie flopped it would have been "the best-marketed flop the world has known". Australia opens in Britain on December 26.
