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80An infectiously joyful Australian Aboriginal musical.
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75Enjoyable and forgettable in equal measure, the lovably cheesy Australian movie Bran Nue Dae is a must for children bitten by the musical-revival fever, for all who heart American Idol, and for anyone who came of age in the late 1960s - and is willing to hear the beloved pop standards of their youth massacred for a new age.
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75It may not have songs by ABBA, but Bran Nue Dae is roughly Australia's far less elaborate answer to "Mamma Mia!" -- a cheerful and proudly corny musical that's pretty hard to resist if you're in the right frame of mind.
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75It's a little racy for our "High School Musical" set. But Bran Nue Dae (say it out loud) will play anywhere fans like a musical so cute you want to pinch its cheeks.
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75Bran Nue Dae is a strange change from the usual multiplex fare, and that's nearly enough to make it wonderful.
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70It's almost impossible not to be swept up by the exuberant fun of this singing, dancing, irony-laced ode to the repression, reeducation and resistance of Australia's indigenous tribal peoples circa 1969.
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67The movie builds goodwill doggedly, and then pays it all off with a farcical finale with a rousing message: We're all Aborigines! Who knew?
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63It isn't a masterpiece, but it is a good-hearted, sweet comedy, featuring an overland chase that isn't original but sure is energetic.
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63Great? No. But Bran Nue Dae is great good fun.
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63The songs are catchy. The lip-synching, meanwhile, is always a little off, and the dancing is usually average at best.
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60The movie will make you tap your toes; don't expect much for your head or your heartstrings.
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50The movie is bouncy and zesty, its energy unflagging, and some of the big numbers are heavily tinged with Bollywood. Conceptually, it should have been a trip.
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A very slightly plotted, over-the-top film with hammy acting suitable for an old "Benny Hill" episode. If that sounds like fun, go see it, mate.
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50The movie feels trapped in the 1980s and feels like a missed opportunity.
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50The film is too broad and tacky to engage on a universal level, or at least Stateside: The choreography is sloppy and lifeless; the outmoded blend of vintage rock, country and Broadway styles doesn't click; and the characters are such caricatures that it's no wonder the entire cast is overacting.
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50The bits of Aboriginal lore imparted along the way by Tadpole add flavoring to a sugar-coated romp that has the craft of a high school revue.
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50Offering blandly stereotypical characters in a trite road-trip narrative, it's genial but too silly for most grownups, and likely to impress few "High School Musical"-indoctrinated kids.
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42As the boarding school honcho Father Benedictus, Geoffrey Rush chews so much scenery that he looks ready to burst.
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Bran Nue Dae has so much feel-good fizz that you can almost overlook its rickety construction. But not quite.
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40While well known to many Down-Under fans, Bran Nue Dae has too much comic kitsch for U.S. specialty film audiences.
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38So light and airy, it almost floats away on its own breeziness.
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As a drama this is rote, as a musical it's uninspired, and as a comedy it's adolescent; ultimately it's a mess, unsure what it wants to be.