Kangaroo Jack: Critic Reviews

Junky kids' comedy.

There is something crass and ugly about the way Kangaroo Jack develops its hackneyed, potentially amusing premise.

A competent and workmanlike action-adventure romp for kids, briefly enlivened by a funny cameo from Christopher Walken.

Young children will like the hubbub and probably the flatulence, but grim-faced grown-ups might share sentiments with grizzled Australian character actor Bill Hunter, who plays a pilot... 'I should have never left the pub.'

A front-end collision of a family comedy.

Will parents be able to sit through Kangaroo Jack without plunging sharp sticks into their eyes? The short answer? Yes. Barely.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has an unparalleled knack for assembling Z-grade talent, particularly when operating in family-fun mode.

The result is a hybrid hash.

Little more than an exercise in pockmarked dialogue, lame stereotype riding and even worse pacing.

The film's crude humor and violence -- cartoonish, but still violent -- should offend parents of younger kids. Yet its ultra-broad, pratfall-filled comedy will satisfy only the most indiscriminate teens.

Likable but negligible.

There is, it turns out, a limit to how many times you can hear 'g'day mate' or Men at Work's 1982 hit 'Down Under.'

Take a camcorder to the zoo and make your own kangaroo movie. Trust me, it will be far superior.

It's 89 minutes of pure agony without a laugh in sight.

A shrill and silly farce in which a CGI marsupial seems more lifelike than most of its flesh-and-blood co-stars.

This is barely enough story ... to sustain a Three Stooges short, let alone an 88-minute movie.

A combination of scatological humor, gunplay and sexual references -- including a scene in which Charlie fondles Jessie just off-screen -- should put it off limits to many kids.

It's clear it was intended to cash in with audiences of all ages, but the antics are distinctly childish, while the romance is sexually suggestive.

Though the comedy is feeble, the dramatic elements -- including the budding romance between Charlie and Jessie -- cross the pain threshold.

There really is a nice core to the movie, and O'Connell and Anderson are equally adept at getting laughs by playing up the characters' manic drive to keep going.

Aussie-set comic fiasco.

A very bad movie -- shouldn't have been PG.

A ragged comedy that features much more lame slapstick action than bouncing beast.

Brainless and inane, this is for undemanding kids only.

Parents beware: this film is too crude, violent and offensive for younger viewers.