So Baz Luhrmann had about six movies he wanted to make about Australia, I’m guessing, and the studio told him they’d fund one, so he said, fine, I’ll just cram them all into a single movie. And he did.

At about 45 minutes in, you’ll feel like you could turn the movie off and feel like you watched a complete narrative arc. You’ll feel like that three or four more times before the actual end comes, but each time, he’ll keep going and tell a slightly different story, spinning off on an element that was sorta tangential in the previous story. But I don’t think he knows he’s doing this; by all appearances, he thinks he’s telling one single epic story. Very odd structure.

Other than the overstuffed feeling, it’s a pretty decent movie. Enjoyable characters, gorgeous cinematography (different from Moulin Rouge, but gorgeous), good acting, and in general all the pleasant stuff that people say about a B+ sort of movie.

It’s not great, but certainly worth watching if you like period epics, westerns, or WW2 movies, as it’s all of those.