Die Känguru-Verschwörung

This installment of the kangaroo stories has blown me away. It's a spot-on, satirical comment on the past years in which covid-19 conspiracy nuts ruled many discussions and sowed so much confusion.

In short, Marc-Uwe and his kangaroo seek out to free Maria's mother from the clutches of her conspiracy theories. On their odyssey, the duo enjoy quite a lot of comical situations - which I will not summarize here.

But let me say that the film contains insider jokes that one can only understand as a German. Though, some refer to the capitol attack on January 6th, 2021. Others relate to covid-19. At one time, they cite a famous phrase from "Life of Brian" (1979). The very beginning bears resemblance to ALF, the 1980 sitcom.

Frankly, I wonder how they will translate this masterpiece for English-speaking audiences.

No pun intended - one of the things I drew out of the whole conspiracy thing that was going on: it is the easy way out to have something or someone to blame on. No matter if there actually are facts to support that - if you feel it, you just take this on and roll with it. I found out that some of my friends, relatives and acquaintances were easy targets of disinformation ... something the movie is able to lay bare.

Even from the start, the movie sets the tone, by reprising the first movie ... not well and then just summarizing it with making fun of humans (the Kangaroo has that joke of course). And while that may seem trivial, it is foreshadowing of things to come.

Reality has shown it is stranger than fiction. And if you are mad at the movie for not getting things straight (male kangaroo with the physics of a female, because of the pouch) or think it is too simple in its depiction of certain characters: try to see this for what it is ... a comedy. Yes it tries to educate in a sense to be more sensible at times, but overall it aims to entertain more than it does to educate. Conspiracy theorists are easy targets - that does not make them less people or human of course.

The movie also is not a blueprint on how to deal with them. There are some solutions ... some suggestions on things you could try out. But the movie shows that it might backfire too ... in a bigger way than you may think. One thing is for sure, arguing with someone online is not going to solve much ... talking to someone you know and trying to talk to them on a personal level on the other hand ... might.

First of all, the talking CGI-kangaroo is only a gimmick. It is named "Kangaroo" and voiced by the author Marc-Uwe Kling. No explanation is given, it's just there. It doesn't do anything important a human actor couldn't have done, and everybody treats it as something entirely normal. It's not from some kind of alien kangaroo culture, it talks and acts just like some average young guy. It looks different, that's the whole point. And it is female, because - News Flash for Mr. Kling! - male kangaroos don't have a pouch.

The story: Marc-Uwe, the housemate of Kangaroo, loves Maria, the single mother next door. After another date went wrong, he manages to get her to accept a bet. If he wins there will be a last try for a romantic date - in Paris. To win that prize, he has to destroy Maria's mother's believe in conspiracy theories. Which one? All of them, everything ever labeled as a conspiracy theory. There is no differentiation in this movie, it's just one big conspiracy blob. Then the father of the child reappears, who had been a political prisoner in North Korea. He is welcomed by Maria and the bet should be off, the film should end. Everything else would be creepy - and it is: Marc-Uwe still wants to have his prize, still wants to get into her pants.

There are a lot of gratuitous filler scenes in this movie, a lot of cringe worthy dialogues, there is much hate and precious little that's fun or funny. At its core is the proudly ignorant depiction of "conspiracy theorists" as braindead, fanatic, violent sectarians, whose thoroughly baseless ideas invariably turn them into right wing extremists. Maybe the script was written by a 14-year-old pupil after watching some YT- or PBS-rants, who was mainly concerned with not writing anything that could be interpreted as any kind of sympathy or understanding or even some kind of humanization of the "conspiracy theorists", because that would surely anger his teacher. The "discussions" are just buzz words and slogans. It's a borefest, "Reefer Madness"-level of propaganda. Mind you, that movie from 1936 became a campy cult classic 40 years later, so there might be hope for this one.

Already, in May 2023, some of the things in this movie really didn't age well. The salute of the "conspiracy theorists" is "Stay woke!" - while doing the All Seeing Eye hand sign. Lol. In one endless filler scene, Marc-Uwe lectures a soldier about the evilness of his profession. As an obvious supporter of the Green Party, due to the war in the Ukraine, he would now sing a very different tune. Talk about the "deindustrialisation of Germany" is one of the examples given for the utter insanity of the errant truth seekers. Today the collapse of the energy supply and the deindustrialisation of Germany are hot topics and parts of mainstream discussions. Double lol! The times have been a-changing.

The mindset of this movie - believe everything the authorities tell you or we'll call you a nazi - is dangerous. The escalating war against "fake news", "disinformation", "conspiracy theories" and so forth is an actual threat to democracy, because it is led by people who could actually end it, and there is ONE fundamental freedom without that all the others will erode and disappear. On the other hand, the millions of kooks, simpletons, esoterics, potheads and what have you that believe in all kinds of preposterous things are mostly marginalised and completely harmless. It is absolutely fine to make fun of them, but "The Kangaroo Conspiracy" demonizes them, declares open season on them, unrestrainedly punching down. Therefore it is a blessing that this movie is that bad. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 20)