Sarah (Nicole Kidman) bonds with Nullah (Brandon Walters), in Australia.

Twentieth Century Fox / James Fisher

Even at two hours and 46 minutes, there’s a lot to cram into the colorful epic that is Australia.

This romantic adventure from director and co-writer Baz Luhrmann (Romeo+ Juliet, Moulin Rouge) aims to be the Gone With the Wind of the vast continent of Australia itself. In the end it’s not quite all that, but for much of its running time, Australia does come close.

Set in the early days of World War II, Luhrmann and Co. have managed to encompass the stories of a headstrong woman, a willful man, an orphaned boy of mixed race and a mean-spirited ranch manager, whose guarded family secret is the catalyst for many of the dire events that will unfold. These characters play out against a background of racism, aboriginal mysticism and romantic entanglements which go head to head with the clashes that erupt because of Colonial rule.

But the film is much more than a social drama. It’s also an old-fashioned “western” movie which takes up nearly the first half of Australia, complete with barroom brawl, tenderfoot cowhands, grueling cattle drive, cattle stampede, murder and a cattle-stealing, land-grabbing cattle baron. Then there’s the Japanese Imperial Navy which is sailing for the northern coast of Australia as the first leg of its planned invasion of the continent, eventually bombing the city of Darwin with nearly the ferocity that had been unleashed earlier in the war on Pearl Harbor.

Oddly, this collision of characters and events makes for engrossing dramatic fireworks. Although the plot’s final resolution disappoints with its hokey, overly melodramatic histrionics, most of Australia makes for compelling drama and adventure. Despite its lengthy running time, it rarely lags. Its central story holds attention: A woman whose previously unexplored motherly instincts surface as she tries to protect an orphaned boy from the police who ship children of mixed blood to an offshore island run by missionaries where they are “prepared” for later service to white society.

It doesn’t hurt that Australia is gorgeous looking to boot. And it’s not only the scenery — mountains and deserts and red sunsets. It includes Hugh Jackman, recently named People magazine’s “sexiest man alive,” who here has been costumed in tight jeans and tight-waisted shirts to emphasize his broad shoulders and muscular chest. Luhrmann’s camera loves him even more than it loves co-star Nicole Kidman whose Lady Sarah Ashley at first is corseted in prim, businesslike attire to match her character’s prim, corseted outlook on life. At one point my Australia-descended moviegoing companion marveled at how Kidman managed not to perspire in some of the heavy-looking costumes despite temperatures that must have been 110. But then, the British colonials never broke a sweat, did they?

Much of the first half of Australia plays like as a Down Under western as Sarah arrives from England in hopes of getting her husband to sell his money-losing cattle ranch (or “station”), called Faraway Downs. Greedy cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown), who owns nearly all the surrounding land, wants to complete his stranglehold on the territory. Carney’s men have already been snatching some of her husband’s best cattle from the local watering hole.

But upon her arrival at Faraway Downs, Sarah discovers that her husband has been murdered. A local old aboriginal witch doctor, known as King George (David Gulpilil, who played the mysterious young aborigine in the film Walkabout 37 years ago), is the prime suspect.

She decides to save Faraway Downs by beating King Carney at his own game and bringing her cattle to market first. But things do not look promising, especially because Sarah already has had a bad beginning with the dashingly handsome, rogue-ish cattle drover called Drover (Jackman in the Errol Flynn role) who has been hired to take the ranch’s cattle to Darwin for sale to the Australian military which is gearing up for the coming Japanese assault. During a saloon brawl, her luggage was wrecked and her unmentionables strewn along a city street, much to Sarah’s distress.

Things between them get even rockier. But at the same time, Sarah finds herself drawn to protecting a fatherless aborigine boy, Nullah (Brandon Walters), grandson of King George who has taught the boy some of the tribe’s magic. Nullah is a precocious, scene-stealing charmer with a winning smile. He calls Sarah “Mrs. Boss.” Nullah is always on the lookout for the police who would snatch him away and send him to the island run by priests and nuns.

In the wake of a tragedy, Sarah and Nullah bond even more closely and she becomes even more protective of him, something which later leads to the film’s most wistful, sentimental, heart-wrenching moments. At one point Sarah tries to help Nullah over his grief by telling him the story of The Wizard of Oz, a theme which will return again and again in the film, with the iconic “Over the Rainbow” becoming sort of Australia’s theme song.

But first, with Faraway Downs on the skids, those cattle must be taken to market in what becomes a race against time against Carney’s men and his new ranch manager, the viper-ish Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), who recently was fired by Sarah and who now is determined to stop her from reaching the coast first at all costs. Fortunately, and because he has no other better prospects, Drover reluctantly agrees to oversee the cattle drive with the help of a rag-tag bunch of cowhands, including Sarah and Nullah.

Here Luhrmann weaves together the best moments from several traditional western movies, including the cattle stampede and the poisoned watering hole. Then he adds inevitable romance — of course Sarah is going to lose her self-righteous imperious attitude and fall for Drover, especially after she encounters him washing off the trail dust with a bucket of water in a sexily lit scene — with the unlikely mix of racist undertones and sentiment that revolve around a child.

Kidman and Jackman have strong screen chemistry which makes their off-again, on-again relationship believable and compelling with a sexy intensity. So, too, is the chemistry between Kidman and the magnetically rascally Walters as Nullah whose magical powers add mysticism to the story. Always watching carefully, but from a distance, is Gulpilil as King George, bringing the film an out-of-this-world presence, something that’s weighted against the grim, self-interested presence of Wenham’s Fletcher, a man who will do anything to attain his own ends.

Luhrmann has created a sweeping epic, literally. Sometimes the camera swoops from a low point on the ground to fly far above it for some breathtaking views. The Japanese attack equals the best of the wartime action films.

Yet Luhrmann never lets the explosive events roll over his characters that stand squarely in the foreground, making their personal crises the center of attention.

It’s only too bad that in the end all these good intentions are nearly undone by over-the-top melodrama. It almost seems as though the writers had backed their way into a corner. Fortunately, in the last, Australia manages to recover and to touch us with genuine emotion.

****Australia

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson.

Rated: PG-13, contains violence, sexuality.

mjanuson@projo.com