Ned Kelly Starring Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, and Naomi Watts. Directed by Gregor Jordan. Written by John M. McDonagh, based on Robert Drewe's novel. Rated R.

Ned Kelly and his gang are to Australia's national lore what Bonnie and Clyde are to ours. The outlaw antiheroes rode the wild country in Victoria and New South Wales in the late 1870s, robbing banks, eluding police, and using the newspapers to proclaim resistance to the English colony's harassment of Irish immigrants like themselves. Their exploits ended spectacularly in a bloody shootout in 1880, with all the gang members (except Kelly himself, who was captured and hanged) dying despite wearing bulletproof suits of armor. The gang has been memorialized in songs, plays, novels, and several films, including a 1970 entry that starred Mick Jagger, and a 1906 silent version now lost to history that was supposedly the first full-length feature film produced in Australia. Ned Kelly, the latest version of the story, has been heavily hyped in its native country. Heath Ledger headlines a cast full of Aussie actors who have become stars on our side of the Pacific, plus token Briton Orlando Bloom. Unfortunately, all that starpower can't overcome the studied self-importance of this period piece.

Australian director Gregor Jordan made a promising debut with his comedy Buffalo Soldiers last year. A satire of the U.S. military that missed its mark (it was shot before 9/11), the film nevertheless succeeded as a detailed study of its main character, a clever scam artist. Ned Kelly would have been amusing had it gone the same way, but it doesn't give us that kind of characterization. Where Buffalo Soldiers was entirely fictional, this movie has its roots in history (even though it's based on a novel by Robert Drewe). Jordan's constant awareness that he's enshrining a part of his country's mythology leaches out any of the fun that might have come from this story.

Ledger contributes to the history-lesson atmosphere, too, by once again taking his character too seriously. (He does have a lighter side; it surfaced briefly in the 1999 teen flick 10 Things I Hate About You. Somebody bring it back.) Most of the supporting cast follows suit, including Geoffrey Rush as a villainous police captain and Naomi Watts as an English-born aristocrat who has a short-lived affair with Ned -- her character seems to be in the movie for no reason other than to provide a pretty female face for us to look at. The movie's only note of levity comes from Rachel Griffiths as a Scottish-accented banker's wife who becomes sexually aroused when she finds herself in the middle of a hold-up and gets it on with one of the robbers.

As delightful as that is, it isn't nearly enough to counteract the movie's overarchingly solemn tone. Nor does the film have an original take on the story of Ned Kelly or find contemporary resonance in his deeds. Its antihero remains a graven icon, whereas Peter Carey's novel True History of the Kelly Gang brings him to startling life. Curious moviegoers would be well advised to crack open that book. Only those with an interest in Australian history would possibly be drawn to this bit of pedantry.