Rating: 
Summary: How to save money by having no script
Review: This movie starts in Sydney. A teenage girl and her little brother live with their father. They don't say much.
In an unexplained change of scenery, they are out in the middle of the Australian outback in a Volkswagon Beetle. The father unsuccessfully tries to shoot his childeren, sets fire to the VW and kills himself, for no apparent reason. The girl and the little boy wander around, not saying much.
Eventually, a teenage Aboriginal finds them, solving the food and water problem they haven't mentioned. He doesn't speak English, so they don't say much. They wander around some more. Eventually, the Aboriginal either dies of bordom or kills himself because he has realised what this movie is going to do to his acting career. The girl and white boy don't say much about it and wander around some more.
Mysteriously, the girl ends up back in Sydney. We don't know how. We aren't told and we don't care by now because we are so bored.
There is so little script that we don't find out the names of ANY of the caracters.
Jenny Agutter is such an attractive woman, and such a fabulous actress, that this didn't finish her career. However, the director still managed to make her uninteresting, even with her clothes off.
Like most Australian movies, this has good cinematography, and nothing else going for it. It helps explain why the Australian film industry can only survive by offering high income earners enormous government tax deductions to flush their investment dollars down the toilet. It also helps to explain why the public watch very few Australian movies.
Rating: 
Summary: Nostalgia for innocence!
Review: This is a moving journey. Stimulating and disturbing film with social overtones . Since two white Australian children are stranded in the Outback , they are forced to negotiate across the Desert . In those harsh conditions , they decide adopt an aborigen who will guide . The images through the desert are after Lawrence of Arabia , of course of first rate . The enrichness dialogue and the relation between all the members of this forced expedition are handled with talent and eficiency . This film and Do not look now may be the most artistic movies of that unusual, potent and original director: Nicholas Roeg .
A timeless cult movie!
Rating:
Summary: great movie--plus reasons for some of you not to see it
Review: Many other reviews here have pointed out the best parts of this movie quite well, so I don't feel the need repeat the praises for this movie.
One should clear one's mind of preconceptions or expectations, just watch without trying to judge what's going on first.
I direct the following advice to potential viewers who probably should NOT watch it: If you go to the Grand Canyon and think, "Boy, wonder why someone bothered to make this useless big hole in the ground" or "I wish I could buy a condo on that ridge right over there and have a golf course nearby" instead of just enjoying the view--stop right there. Don't watch this movie.
If you like to watch movies to "compare" them to something else such as a book it's supposedly based on, you won't enjoy it--so don't watch this movie.
If you think all movies from 1971 should have the same style, budget, sound effects and editing style of the latest mega-budget Jerry Bruckheimer film, don't watch this movie.
If you think an art film means it's put out by Miramax and has a sensual scene with Kate Blanchette, spunky and irreverant foreigners who win your heart, or lots of serious English folk with great diction --don't watch this movie.
If you think people need to be clad in opaque cloth at all times when potentially viewable by strangers, don't watch this movie.
If you think that your dinner wasn't slaughtered (or if you're a vegan, that some process of agriculture didn't kill the lives of countless animals and insects--nevermind the odd trillion single celled organism here or there), don't watch this movie. Face it: when we eat, something else dies--otherwise become a Jainist, an Indian religious sect whose ultimate goal is the practioner's demise, because even stepping on a bug is a sin--if you're dead, you can't collect bad karma. Perhaps this is why the father shot himself?
If you do realize and wholly accept that killing for food is a fact of life, yet consider actually being shown this reality in a movie to be redundant or disgusting--go right ahead in living in your comfortable, insulated world where nothing shall possibly disturb you and don't watch this movie!
If after all of the above, you still choose to watch the movie and are totally baffled and perplexed: you are basically Jenny Argutter's character in the movie--you see the guy dancing but can't for the life of you figure out why, or even if you suspect, you're afraid and disgusted by it and reject it out of hand. Congratulations, you've won your prize, please exit on the left with the other dazed and angry patrons. Yes, the director's plan was to annoy you all along!
Rating:
Summary: walkabout
Review: Walkabout is simply one of the best films ever made. The photography and editing are exceptional. The sound editing is better than in any other film I have seen.
However I disagree with SOME of the reviews which seem to indicate that the film is some kind of hymn of praise direted towards the primitive aboriginals and a condemnation of modern society. Roeg seems to be saying there are problems in both. After all, both the girl's father and the aborigine kill themselves, though more criticism is naturally reserved for civilization. There is plenty of animal killing here, but except for the white hunters, it is done for food so I don't see what the problem is. People who buy food from supermarkets really just want to mentaly distance themseselves from the foodchain process.
Still, the story, the scenery, the acting, and the direction make this a movie not to miss. The failed courtship scenes before the second suicide are some of the best sequences on film.
Rating:
Summary: Coming of age in the outback of Australia
Review: A very unusual film for its time, Walkabout combines many themes in what is ostensibly a tale of survival in the Australian outback. I suppose it was a bit too racy for American audiences as Roeg focuses lovingly on a young nubile Jenny Augutter but that would be missing the point of this movie which contrasts the sterile life of a young British girl and boy with an Aborigine man-child.The film depicts the initial bleakness of the Australian desert which the two children find themselves thrust into after the father mysteriously chooses to commit suicide, but eventually shows the immense diversity of the outback as the young Aborigine leads the lost children back to civilization. Roeg uses a variety of cinematic techniques to paste together his poetic vision, ultimately developing the sexual tension between Agutter and the Aborigine, culminating in a fateful courting ritual which Agutter appears oblivious too. However, the star of the movie is the little boy, Luc Roeg, who forms a very special bond with the Aborigine. The film may be too much to handle for small children, but it is ideal for teenagers, as it will give them a very different experience from the run-of-the-mill teen movies that proliferate in the video stores. Don't fret over the R rating, as the nudity is fleeting and treated in a very respectful way. In Britain, the rating is 12 for young teenagers.
Rating: 
Summary: An intertesting film, just plain different
Review: This is an interesting film and one of the more unusual mainstream films I have seen. Despite the full frontal nudity (obviously non-sexual nudity) It is an overall good film. A young woman and her little brother are abandoned in the Australian outback by their father who has committed suicide. The two encounter an young aborigine man who is on 'walkabout' a ritual where individuals are sent out to see if they can survive on their own. He eventually leads them back to a populated area. The original music score by John Barry is superb and sounds very similar to the music he did in the earlier James Bond films. The Criterion collection DVD has an excellent audio commentary by director Nick Roeg and leading actress Jenny Agutter who was in the film. Jenny Agutter is also well known for her role in the film Logan's Run. This movie
Rating: 
Summary: Phenomenal ---- except for sound quality
Review: If you regard nature as a transcendant realm that clearly trumps the fragmented, modern world, this film will move you. Visually, it is sumptuous, floating from normal perspectives of the three main characters, to extreme closeups of all manner of crawling creatures, to surrealistically vast panoramas, to jaw-dropping telephotos of sun rises. The performance of the little boy is so good in this film, it seems almost impossible that he was acting. The fluid athleticism of the aborigine also seemed to be entirely unscripted. The musical score itself is one of the most beautiful I have ever heard. There is, however, one significant deficiency with this DVD (Walkabout - Criterion Collection): the quality of the sound itself is poor. This is not too noticeable with environmental sounds, but if you are a purist regarding sound quality, this shortcoming becomes very noticeable with some of the dialogue, and especially with the music. The poor sound quality is perhaps most noticeable with the blended music and narration of the profoundly moving poem at the end of the film. I've seen this film in the theatre several times since it first came out in the early 1970's and the sound quality in that pre-DVD venue and format was, ironically, clearly superior to the sound quality of the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Walk around this! If it looks like a bad movie . . .
Review: Father takes son and daughter out in the middle of the desert. For some reason that the viewer need not know, he tries to kill them. He fails. Sets fire to the car. Kills himself. The kids are stranded. So far, seems like a bad movie, right? You know, get the kids there in the middle of the desert, somehow, no matter how plausible the situation. Why not have a giant kangaroo abduct them from their home and abandon them there? I should have stopped the movie right then and there. Anyway, they find an aborigine (the only credible contribution this film has to offer; a documentary following him around without those annoying Caucasians would have been much more interesting), walkabout, and swim nekkid with him at the end of the movie. Obvious symbolism here and there. Little meaningful dialogue. Blah, blah, boring! The acting is forced and amateurish. I hated this movie. And this is what gets me: read all of the positive reviews for this and you would think that this is a must see, great motion picture. If you're feeling depressed, stay away from this. Instead watch the B-52s "Roam" video. It's uplifting, light, has a similar theme, and is just as meaningful.
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