| Kangaroo Jack\r\nStarring Jerry O’Connell and Anthony Anderson. Directed by David McNally. Written by Steve Bing and Scott Rosenberg. Rated PG. |
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Don’t Goto the Hop
You’re no Gollum, Kangaroo Jack! And your movie stinks.
By KRISTIAN LIN
’ll say one thing for Kangaroo Jack. Of the comedies currently out there, it isn’t as bad as Just Married. I’m feeling charitable, so I’ll even say one other thing for it: Christopher Walken made me laugh as a mobster who does vocabulary-building exercises in his spare time. Asked to use the word “amorphous” in a sentence, he responds, “When Johnny Clam got whacked, his head was amorphous.”
And that’s it. That’s the one truly enjoyable moment in this terrible kids’ comedy that aims for the same audience that made a hit out of Snow Dogs this time last year. (A sequel to that movie is rumored to be in the works, by the way. If you paid to see the original, this is your fault. Not mine. Yours.) Hollywood thrives on little kids, who haven’t had time to develop critical standards or sales resistance, who typically drag an extra admission in the form of a parent or two to the theater, and who feel more or less entertained when a movie creates an atmosphere that makes them feel like they should be entertained. (Come to think of it, that last thing describes too many grown-up moviegoers.)
Kangaroo Jack involves a couple of brain-dead Americans (Jerry O’Connell and Anthony Anderson) who are sent by Walken’s mob boss to deliver $50,000 to someone in Australia. Through some ineffective plot machinery, the money winds up in the pocket of a jacket that’s been put on a kangaroo, which means the two guys have to chase the computer-generated marsupial through the outback. Director David McNally and screenwriters Steve Bing and Scott Rosenberg have done zero kids’ movies between them, and their inexperience shows, as the gangster plot gets too heavy and there’s a perfunctory romance between O’Connell and a wildlife expert (Estella Warren) — what’s a romantic subplot doing in a kids’ movie?
The kangaroo, meanwhile, is nearly as disastrous a computer-generated character as Scooby-Doo. Mercifully, the animal doesn’t talk except during a brief fantasy sequence, so we’re spared lots of sure-to-be-unfunny dialogue. Still the animal is supposed to have funny human reactions to the comedy bits, but the image isn’t nearly a good enough actor. With the vivid performance of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, why would any but the youngest viewers want to see a piece of computer animation that can’t out-act the unexceptional human talent in this film? Do yourself and your kids a favor and prevent a sequel to this movie by staying away.
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