Kangourou Jack

I was expecting this to be really bad. But, considering you knew this was a kid's PG movie going in, it wasn't that bad. I liked the kangaroo; it looked real throughout the film. And the 2 goofy characters were funny at times. Plus, the whole idea of putting a jacket on a "dead" kangaroo and then it waking up and hopping away with your mob money is amuzing. The airplane pilot was funny at times as well as what happened when he got shot with a dart in the neck. But, Estella Warren was awful. She has no screen presence and is just boring to watch.

FINAL VERDICT: I thought the plot was entertaining and there is enough to get some laughs out of this silly movie.

I was fooled by the packaging. I expected the movie to be about a kangaroo. It was - but just barely. I even thought it would be about a talking kangaroo. It was - but only for a moment. It was advertised as fodder for kids. Well, it tends to remain in the general audience vein with brief strays into light-hearted sexual innuendo. No, here the kangaroo is simply incidental to the actual story which isn't that compelling to start with. It is mostly a CGI kangaroo and not always a very good one. When the animal is actually on the screen it tends to almost be annoying because it tends to come across as a commercial. Sort of like .... meanwhile, here is what the kangaroo is doing. It breaks up the storyline with somewhat lame attempts at the kangaroo trying to be funny. Completely unnecessary. As for the story - it could have actually been a good Mafia-lite film in a way. The resulting revelation about the purpose of the kangaroo hijacked envelope of money was the most interesting part of the film. There are some amusing sequences but nearly none have anything to do with the kangaroo. Why was the kangaroo billed as the star? I don't know. Even as the film ends the kangaroo soliloquies that he is the star and finally gets to performing in the way I originally thought the film was going to convey. By the end of the film I felt somewhat betrayed. I was waiting for a kangaroo that never really happened.

Two childhood friends, a New York hairstylist and a would-be musician, get caught up with the mob and are forced to deliver $50,000 to Australia, but things go haywire when the money is lost to a wild kangaroo.

This film is notorious for its deceptive advertising. Everyone thought it would be about a talking kangaroo. And, after all, the film is called "Kangaroo jack", so it makes sense you would expect the lead character to be the kangaroo. But, in fact, the kangaroo does not talk, and has a relatively small part to play in the movie (even if he is the key figure to the whole plot).

If you keep your expectations low, this is actually a fun film. Very predictable, sort of stupid, but watch it with some friends and you might just have a fun time. And it is pretty wholesome for the most part. Some mild violence, a bit of forced romance, but nothing too adult and hardly any curse words. That seems to be more and more rare these days (2015).

As a special treat, one of the supporting cast members is Michael Shannon (and Christopher Walken has a small part). This is before Shannon really got noticed or came to be respected as a critical success. Watch him in this role, though. Despite it being a pretty awful film, Shannon shines. He gives it 100% even when Jerry O'Connell is happy just to get a paycheck.

Let's get to the point. Kangaroo Jack is necessarily the worst film of all time, but neither is it the greatest. It's not even close. What it is though is fairly humorous, though usually silly.

The story is a bit good at parts, but far-fetched at others. Charlie and Louis were best friends ever since childhood, after one saved another from drowning. One of their fathers was a gangster or something, and the two are sent with a job to deliver the money to some other dude. The story isn't quite a bad one, and does take a little twist. (The twist is related to the job.) The main flaw in the story is that the movie is supposedly aimed at kids. Do you think kids will understand anything about mafia or anything like that?

Despite that, there are other moments not aimed at kids. One of the jokes includes Charlie grabbing on of the other character's chest. Another scene includes a homophobic joke. ("We're having an intimate, non-gay moment.) The film is a bit funny and entertaining, but the farting and homophobic jokes, along with the strange storyline makes it less than what it could have been, but I still enjoyed it more than other films such as The Cat in the Hat, Scary Movie and Dude, Where's My Car?

5/10

Feel free to send me a Private Message regarding this comment.

Two Brooklyn friends (Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson) are commissioned by a mob boss (Christopher Walken) to deliver $50,000 to a shady character in the Outback. The operation goes awry when a kangaroo inadvertently runs off with one of the guys' jacket... and the money. Michael Shannon is on hand as a mob heavy.

"Kangaroo Jack" (2003) is a likable family-friendly adventure/comedy with the typical eye-rolling kid humor (e.g. Fart jokes). It's fun, harmless hokum highlighted by spectacular Australian cinematography and the beautiful Estella Warren as an Outback preservationist. The humorous camaraderie of the protagonists is another highpoint. But the story isn't as compelling as I hoped it would be and the camera never really captures Estella's beauty beyond her lovely face and bosom.

It runs 1 hour, 29 minutes and was shot in Australia and Brooklyn with reshoots done in Los Angeles.

GRADE: C+