Consider the platypus—otter body, duck bill, beaver tail, lays eggs. Like many mythical creatures (think, hippogryphs, sphinx and manticores), the platypus is an unlikely conflagration of disparate elements haphazardly thrown together. Unlike those so happily consigned to the pages of Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, the platypus bears the distinct indignity of actually existing. It’s one of those rare beasties that can easily be held up simultaneously as an argument both for and against intelligent design. Clearly, any architect that could produce such a travesty of engineering must either have an extraordinary sense of humor, be completely bat-shit crazy, or perhaps just hails from Australia. Maybe all three.

Enter Baz Luhrman. His evident desire to recycle and repurpose secondhand pieces to discover new and surprising creations has paid off to some fine effect with his past works. “Strictly Ballroom” put a glittery Vegas spin on a tried and true high school romance formula. His thoroughly contemporary take on “Romeo and Juliet” rewrote the bard in spray paint on the concrete walls of LA’s mean streets, resonating with MTV hoodies like nobody thought possible. With the dizzying theatricality of his neo-burlesque, retro-rock opera “Moulin Rouge,” he seemed to be hitting his stride—if “stride” could be defined as reverse spinning back-flips over neon windmills.

Luhrman’s stated mission with his latest venture, “Australia,” was to recreate a good old fashioned romantic epic, set in the outback of a native land, that would harken back to the good old days when screens were silver, and heroes needed no super powers to get the girl.
A decent enough ambition for an artist of his suit, but it turns out, the man just doesn’t know when to put on the brakes. His story of a porcelain English widow (Nicole Kidman) and her untamed Tarzan of a ranch hand (Hugh Jackman), challenged to take the reigns of a dusty inherited cattle ranch in Australia’s pre-war frontier, is an unwieldy collision of genres that have all been done better elsewhere. He throws everything into the stew—star-crossed love, racial inequity, class discrimination, corporate villainy, the horror of war, childlessness, motherlessness, cow stampedes… you name it. Its two-hour 40-minute running time sports no fewer than three terrific opportunities to wrap up quite spiffily, but the thing just keeps on plowing.

The level of manipulation and melodrama on display could possibly be forgiven had Luhrman resisted his urge to make it wacky, too. But there it is. Behind the absurdly attractive main players lurches an unwashed parade of comic stereotypes—the fat old drunk, the shouting Chinese cook, the sneering bad guy with the requisite Whiplash mustache. Even the little Aborigine half-caste child who ultimately proves to be the heart of the film is presented with a plastic, superficial mysticism one could easily imagine spouting from the lips of Jar Jar Binks.
In Luhrman’s over-earnest attempt to suture together every possible reference to the films he loved when he was young, and to build a cinematic model of the country he so clearly adores, he has done nothing for them all but a terrible disservice.

The platypus may be curious and tragic enough on its own. Now imagine a drunken 400-pound platypus in sequins and a cowboy hat crooning “Over the Rainbow” as bombs fall outside. Sometimes, Baz, even in territory as big as Australia, less is more. Really.