Super Rocky

This film's problems are numerous and in your face from the get-go. Start with the ridiculous toupee worn by the British former champion who owns Matilda, the boxing kangaroo. Matilda is a guy in a fur suit. He looks less like a real kangaroo than I look like a blue whale. The script and dialogue are pure garbage. But Elliot Gould, who had just done Nashville, The Long Goodbye and A Bridge Too Far and was still considered a star, read the script and thought it was fine, which shows how bad his judgment was. This was the beginning of the end for his career, which was probably inevitable since he was always a talentless hack anyway. To say Gould embarrasses himself here would be an understatement.

I suppose this was intended as a kid's film, but I saw it when I was about 8 years old and I hated it then too. What a piece of crap.

The main problem as I see with Matilda is that there is no sense of enchantment in what is clearly a most improbable tale. The film would have to be handled that way for any chance of success.

Matilda is a tale written in the 30s by Paul Gallico updated for the current 70s times. In it Clive Revill who is the only one in the cast to sense that this should be a fantasy in his performance tells the tale of how he came to America from Great Britain with a trained boxing kangaroo. The beast has a punch like Dempsey and no one can stand up to him.

Elliott Gould who sees possibilities here as an animal act agrees to be their agent. One night the real heavyweight champion who's had a few steps in the ring. Larry Pennell gets nailed and goes down for the count. The act is made.

It's also not pleasing to mobster Harry Guardino who controls Pennell. The best scenes in the film are some of his inept hitmen trying to carry out a contract on a kangaroo. Things are most pleasing to sportswriter Robert Mitchum who wants to take Guardino down.

In Lee Server's book on Robert Mitchum, actor/stuntman Gary Morgan who got into the kangaroo suit to play Matilda said that the producers actually tried to convince critics this was a real kangaroo. The littlest kid out there could see that wasn't the case and they roasted the film.

It sure didn't help trying to put over a lie like that. But there's more to it. I think that it might have worked with some special effects and an animated Matilda. Even with that though Matilda still would have had a long way to go to succeed as fantasy.

American-International cancelled its plans to widely market and release this movie after disasterous test runs - a wise plan, but upon seeing the movie you have to wonder why they even bothered with test runs. I have no idea how the tale of a boxing kangaroo played in the original Paul Gallico novel, but nothing works about it translated into a movie. Kids won't like it - they will be confused half the time with details like sports corruption and boxing rules/regulations, and the other half of the time they'll be finding the events remarkably unfunny and unengaging. Adults will be finding the events remarkably unfunny and unengaging *all* the time!

It's not just the script that's bad. Though the movie had something of a budget, the production looks remarkably cheap and tacky. Obviously, that includes the kangaroo animatronic costume, which looks so phony that even a two year-old will recognize it's a man in a costume. Though there are also things like sets that look like, well, SETS, and dirty and unfocused cinematography.

Nobody behind the scenes seems to have put any heart and passion in the production, and it's no wonder the actors are dragged down with it. Gould (who further killed his career with this movie) does put in some effort despite the fact you can see in his eyes that he knows he's in a stinker, but his broad performance ends up adding to the feeling the movie is mocking the viewer. At least it is a performance; Robert Mitchum doesn't even TRY putting in any effort in his scenes (which were clearly knocked off in a couple of days at most!)

Still, the movie clearly could have been worse. That's because there are signs that the movie was originally LONGER! One example: take the scene where the mobsters are attempting to jump the kangaroo for the first time - one of them utters "This time we'll...." - indicating there was originally another scene earlier when they tried to get the kangaroo. Think about it: somewhere in some vault, there exists a longer version of this movie! Scary!

My brother took me to this back in the 70s, and I loved it. And only recently found it again. No, it's not Citizen Kane or Vertigo, but it is a fun little story similar to Gus the Kicking Mule and The Cat from Outer Space (which is the best of those cheap but fun Disney movies of that era). This is a fun, cute and very silly movie that actually has good acting and a very bad faked Kangaroo. If it's snowing on a Saturday or you are in lockdown, it's a fun romp to watch with the kids.

Extremely bad, deservedly one of the biggest financial disasters of the decade. There was little potential in a supposed feel-good kiddie movie about a boxing kangaroo trying to beat the human world champion, but it didn't have to be this bad. For instance, they could have trained a real kangaroo instead of using a ham actor in a cheap, heavy, molting kangaroo suit that bears no resemblance to an animal, even with the animatronic facial expressions. And if you've ever wondered why Elliot Gould's career tanked in the late seventies, this is a big reason. He tries to make up for the bad kangaroo by hamming it up and desperately trying to be cute. And they didn't have to have such an annoying, sexist romance subplot either.

Incredibly bad, but not enjoyably bad like an Ed Wood film. For serious Bad Film buffs only.