Die Känguru-Chroniken

No fun, no plot. That's all I have to say. Didn't laugh, didn't sweep away.

I am totally disappointed. Given the good quality books of Kling it is hard to imagine that anyone could produce a worse movie than this. 25 years ago, the Berlin dialogues would at least be kind of original, today it is full old cliché and this world is obviously long gone as well. What is even worse, the movie has not one likeable character in it. Always a very bad sign. Avoid.

2 Kids and 2 Adults disappointed.

The 2 Kids (7 and 10) were missing all their long term jokes and were terrified by all the visible violence. In the books the Nazis always lose against the Kangaru. But in the movie the Nazis suddenly look and behave dangerous in a non-bud-spencer-realistic-way and Marc gets hurt with real blood visible. We two adults were missing all the jokes and the fun and the nagging of Marc and his Kanguru. In our audition director Dany Levy was available for questions. He told about its own kids being long term hard core fans and warning him not to ruin the (audio)books for his kids for all time by making a bad movie. But he did unfortunately.

"Some will find it mediocre"

If you know and love the books you may come away a bit disappointed. Most of the humor which relies on the reader/listener having some familiarity with literature, philosphy, history is missing. All the more complicated or self-referential bits of humor are missing. It basically feels like a dumbed down version with some unneccesseary additions (e.g. a love story). Forcing the episodic nature of the book(s) into a coherent story was certainly not easy and it shows in the weak cookie-cutter plot. Actor quality is also a mixed bag. Especially the protagonist and main antagonist aren't cast particularly well or just weren't given enough to work with by the script.

That said the kangaroo CGI is good quality, the interaction between it and the other characters feel natural. The movie starts off funny and the pacing works for the most part. Some signature jokes were also incorporated well into the story.

If they take the criticisms to heart I feel they could crank out another one or two of these movies with better quality. There's certainly more than enough source material to draw from.

If you're expecting any new comedy in this movie: no, there isn't. If you're expecting the movie is at least made in the same dry comedy way like the books: nope, it's made in a comedian way maybe even Till Schweiger would be embarrassed of. The film maker took all of the book jokes and put them into slapstick contexts that it's just cringy.

And then these quotations of Pulp Fiction or The big Lebowski. The movie quoted it. But no further jokes / extension. It just took the same dialogs. Like you didn't see those movies.

Super bad movie, although the the novels are great. Made for an audience without a brain. Sad :(