Baz Luhrmann's great mountain of kitsch puts a bunch of old plots in the blender: Out of Africa and Gone With the Wind are prime ingredients, with a dash of Red River, The African Queen and Rabbit-Proof Fence for seasoning.

Luhrmann also throws in the kind of corny death scene that itself died out 50 years ago (on two occasions), ladles on a bunch of CGI, nicks Over the Rainbow as his theme tune and further tests your patience with an epic running time.

It's hard to see who the film is aimed at. Nicole Kidman has many qualities, but she can't bring warmth to the mush the way Meryl Streep did in Out of Africa and the villains are even more one-dimensional than the lead. With its tough Strines, mystical Aborigines and Kidman's stuck-up Pom, the script might as well have been written by Ken Garoo and Barbie Kew. The country itself looks predictably great – so why the digital add-ons?

A lengthy shoot that cost $130m didn't quite make $50m when released in the US. Kidman plays the owner of Faraway Downs, which must have served as an awful reminder of her early clinker Far and Away.