As a film, Woop Woop has problems, starting with a very unsympathetic hero who kills a kangaroo in the first ten minutes of the film - a hazard of driving on Australian roads but in his case it’s mostly because the driver was not looking where he was going. More crucially, the town of Woop Woop is not a nice place like Brigadoon or Shangri-La; it is hellish and horrible, and not a particularly enjoyable place to spend time, even just as an audience member. While things like the chainsaw school and all the tins of pineapple are funny, sometimes the film is just plain off. It does have the courage of its convictions though. The production and costumes are amazing, and the actors give their all.
In one respect at least, Welcome to Woop Woop was an absolute triumph: Rod Taylor. The film gives Rod the role of a life time and he embraces it with a gusto rarely matched in his career. After overplaying Australians in The VIPs and The High Commissioner, he finally gets the pitch right in this over-the-top extravaganza. Whether wearing his Collingwood clothes, tap dancing on bars, or cracking a beer, it is impossible to imagine anyone but Rod in the part and he is magnificent – hilarious, scary, even touching at times.
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