Kangaroo Jack (2003)

Once upon a time, live action-animated hybrids were a truly rare creature. Aside from a few Disney films such as Song of the South and Mary Poppins, there weren’t many examples to choose from. Once Who Framed Roger Rabbit was successful, however, live action-animated hybrids became much more numerous. I can’t say that they became more popular however, as audiences have rightfully rejected most of the muddled hybrids forced upon them. Hybrids are no longer rare, but good hybrids still are.

Kangaroo Jack is by no means a good film, but presents the latest incarnation of the hybrid we’ve come to dread. The titular kangaroo is primarily a computer-animation, although it certainly doesn’t look it – until the much ballyhooed dream sequence halfway through wherein the kangaroo raps and performs some funny hip hop moves. As with many other B-movies, only the special effects crew cares about the final product – the hip-hop kangaroo has a spunk and spark that the rest of the film can’t match. I liked the cartoony kangaroo and wished there were more of him in the movie.

The rest of the film follows the adventures of two marginal Mafia employees (Jerry O’Connell and Anthony Anderson) as they chase the kangaroo across the Australian outback. Perhaps producer Jerry Bruckheimer meant this slapstick as a witless tribute to the Roadrunner cartoons. Perhaps he just meant this to be witless; it’s hard to divine the intentions behind a film like Kangaroo Jack. Despite the Australian setting, there’s no attempt to capture anything truly Australian on film; instead, there’s plenty of stereotyping of Australians as stupid, loud, drunken outback dwellers. Indeed, I kept wondering why Bruckheimer didn’t save a few bucks by filming Kangaroo Jack in Arizona. After all, the roos are computer animated, and we don’t get treated to many National Geographic-style vistas along the way. Considering that the target audience for Kangaroo Jack consists of younger children, much of the comedy is wildly inappropriate, especially after actress Estella Warren treats the kiddies to some wet T-shirt footage. Then again, considering that director David McNally’s only other feature film is Coyote Ugly, can we really expect any different?

If Hollywood still made short subjects, Kangaroo Jack could possibly have been molded into an amusing Three Stooges-style comedy. As it stands, Kangaroo Jack is a cynical film with real contempt for its audience of children. Aside from the CGI sequences, which can be found as a bonus on the DVD, there’s no need for anyone to waste much time on the rest of the film.

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