“Before Dawn” is a World War I saga as uninventive as its title, a flat recreation of the trenches of France and the young men who fought there that adds nothing to the extensive canon of films documenting “The Great War.”

Aussie filmmaker Jordon Prince-Wright’s bitten off a lot for his debut feature, which he’s dedicated to his grandfather in the closing credits. But ambition aside, “Dawn” can’t hold a candle to the best Australian film about World War I (“Gallipoli”), much less the classics “Paths of Glory,” any version of “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “1917,” even if his film stands far above most indie efforts to recreate The Somme, etc., on a tiny budget.

It’s the story of a young sheep rancher from the Outback, joining his mates on the great adventure enlisting promises because “You wouldn’t miss it, wouldya Jim?”

Jim Collins (Levi Miller) leaves behind the rancher/parents who depend on him for a 900 day “adventure” in the mud and blood stalemate of the Western Front.

Prince-Wright’s film, scripted by Jarrad Russell, skips back and forth in time as it tells the story of Jim’s long deployment, the “mates” and what happens on “Day 28,” “Day 753” etc., must of it underscored by Jim’s wartime diary or letters home, recited in voice-over.

We viewers instinctively know better than to get to attached to Jim’s mates, and even Jim’s blunders, tests of courage and morality in trenches that are often too shallow to keep the young men defending them from being picked off come off as “nothing new.”

Good combat sequences, reasonable recreations of No Man’s Land, a few salty “types” — Myles Pollard stands out as the fearless jaded, slouch-hatted sergeant trying to keep this lot alive — lots of “win this” “big push” and “we go home” promises — “Before Dawn” serves up the tropes of the genre and well-worn situations of the war, with the odd Aussie touch.

The lads and their Sgt. set off on a late night “revenge” raid to take out a machine gun crew that killed some of their mates.

The story arc can’t help but be over-familiar. Jim, labeled a “crack shot” by those who know him, is reluctant to take that first life and even more reticent about showcasing his marksmanship.

One thing nobody on the corner of the Western Front misses is a shave or a bath. Muddy moments aside, these are the best-turned-out, made-up trench soldiers of any WWI film of recent vintage.

The odd shot can be striking — very young men piled into a horse-drawn wagon lit by a kerosene lantern, riding out to their destiny in a pitch-dark Outback night. The battlefields and trenches pass muster, but offer little that we haven’t seen before.

One can appreciate the effort and the sentiment driving it. But the conventionality of the story, the long, dull stretches between the passable combat scenes and lack of emotion in the departure from the sheep station and the deaths of friends and comrades hobble “Before Dawn,” a World War I overreach, pretty much start to finish.

Rating: R, violence, profanity, smoking

Cast: Levi Miller, Travis Jeffery, Myles Pollard, Stephen Peacocke and Kelly Belinda Hammond

Credits: Directed by Jordan Prince-Wright, scripted by Jarrad Russell. A Well Go USA release.

Running time 1:40