C'est dans la poche, Matilda

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.

I knew exactly what I was getting into with Matilda. I knew it was a movie starring Elliott Gould as the manager of a boxing kangaroo. It was the most absurd premise I'd ever heard, but since it was Robert Mitchum's time as Star of the Week on Hot Toasty Rag, and since he's one of my favorite celebrity boyfriends, I wanted to show my loyalty by watching every movie of his I could get my hands on. My logic was, if he had to suffer through making such a terrible movie, the least I could do was support him by watching it.

Well, I made it through twenty minutes. It took that long for Robert Mitchum-who, thank goodness, got the respectful "and" in the credits-to show up. He's attending a fight featuring Matilda the boxing kangaroo, and he looks at a publicity poster outside the event. "That is absolutely preposterous," he says in his fantastic voice. I agreed with him so very much. I could practically hear his spirit whisper over my shoulder, "Honey, you've seen 74 of my movies. You don't have to sit through this one." So, I fast-forwarded through all the scenes Bob wasn't in. I still managed to see a man in a kangaroo costume hop around a boxing ring, Elliott Gould act like an idiot, and Clive Revill pretending the man-kangaroo is his family. I felt so sorry for director Daniel Mann, who once directed heavy dramas like Come Back, Little Sheba and Hot Spell. The only bright part of the movie was Robert Mitchum's beautifully thick, wavy hair.

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.

This film is bad, yes, but had the producers used a REAL KANGAROO, it would have killed the actor it was boxing with. I am an Australian and I have seen two seven foot tall male 'Roos fighting each other, it is not a pretty sight as the object is for one or the other to kill it's opponent,(this is there way of securing the herd of females) and there are incidents where someone has boxed a kangaroo, and been injured or killed, so when you see a kangaroo on TV or Film it is likely to be a female, or Animated, as it is a good idea not to injure actors (they might be annoyed at losing the ability to breath). There is a strange idea that Australian animals are cute and cuddly, that is false, many are dangerous (10 of the 12 most deadliest snakes live here)and most are just plain ugly (Koalas are as soft as steal wool). So if you come to Australia BE CAREFULL!!!

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.