Let's Watch This: "Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!" (2004)

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the movie I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this movie, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

In 2003, a film called Kangaroo Jack was released.

Ads for the film promised a goofy comedy starring a talking kangaroo. When my family watched it, we discovered that it was NOT a goofy comedy starring a talking kangaroo. It's actually some sort of action/crime/comedy movie where the kangaroo only speaks during one scene where Jerry O'Connell's character starts hallucinating (and then at the end when he complains about the fact that he barely had any lines in the film). In fact, the kangaroo is barely in the film at all.

And because life isn't fair, the film made a ton of money at the box office despite critics hating it, and it spawned a sequel in 2004 called Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!.

In addition to being direct-to-video, this sequel is animated. Yes, they did an animated sequel to a live action movie. Uh... okay. None of the first film's cast returned. Nor did the director or writers. Instead, the film is directed by Ron Myrick (who also worked on such cartoons as Garfield and Friends, Street Sharks, and Baby Looney Tunes) and written by Adam and Andrew Scheinman.

I have no idea how this came to be, what the thought process behind this was, or how they roped Jeff Bennett into providing the voice of the kangaroo for it. But, SOMEBODY'S gotta do a review of it. And I have heard that this film fixes a few of the problems people had with the first movie. So throw another shrimp on the barbie and other cliched Australian expressions, 'cause this is Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!.

Before I begin the review, I should probably mention that I haven't seen the first film since 2003 (or maybe 2004). So if there are any inconsistencies between this film and the first one, I probably won't pick up on them.

So we get our opening credits over various shots of the outback until we finally see the two leads from the original film, Charlie Carbone and Louis Booker, NOT voiced by Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson but rather by Josh Keaton and Ahmed Best (the voice of Jar Jar Binks). They run around for a few minutes wetting their pants at the sight of all the carnivorous and/or poisonous animals around, and eventually Louis becomes Mr. Exposition and complains that they never should have come back to Australia.

That doesn't look anything like Jerry O'Connell.

It turns out they're there because they're filming a commercial for shampoo. And the director of the commercial is... Jackie Legs himself, voiced by Jeff Bennett!

Yes, the kangaroo is directing a TV commercial. Sure, why not? Since it's a commercial for shampoo, I wonder if this is a subtle reference to the Aussie ads with the purple kangaroo. Probably not...

I'd like a bit of an explanation as to why the kangaroo is directing a TV commercial.

You know how in the first film, the kangaroo only talked in two scenes? In this, it would seem that all of the animals can talk. The snakes, the lizard, the spider, they all talk. This is by no means a bad thing.

So the animals all gang up on Jackie, and then... oh, wait. Never mind. It was just a dream that Louis was having. Oh, jeez, is this going to be like the first film after all? Where the kangaroo only talks in dream sequences? I was promised a talking kangaroo with the voice of Jeff Bennett. I feel cheated.

Anyhow, Louis and Charlie are actually in a jeep with Charlie's love interest from the first movie, Jessie (voiced by Kath Souice).

That doesn't look anything like Estella Warren either.

Louis tells the others that Jackie Legs is in trouble, but nobody believes him because he was only DREAMING that Jackie was in trouble, and Jessie gives some more exposition: they're in Australia because they want to find a new shampoo formula so their company doesn't go out of business. Why are companies in animated films always so close to going out of business? Is the economy worse than I thought?

One thing I will say to the film's credit so far is that the animation is pretty good. About on par with the animation in the direct to video Scooby-Doo movies. Nice backgrounds, in particular.

Why does this have better animation than those awful Larry Doyle-produced Looney Tunes
shorts that were made around the same time?

Okay, so Charlie, Louis, and Jessie arrive at some sort of ancient tribal lands, where there's supposed to be a medicine man who knows more about roots and berries than anybody else in the world. These guys show up:

Oh, wow, some of them literally have black skin. This is incredibly racist.

The leader of the natives, Chief Ankamuti (Obba Babatunde) tells Not Jerry O'Connell, Not Anthony Anderson, and Not Estella Warren that "today is not a good day to be seeking anything" because "the power of the tribe has been stolen." He explains that long ago, the "sky-dwellers" entrusted them with four sacred stones - one as red as fire, one as blue as the sky, one as green as the ocean, and one as black as night. But some evil guys - one with a "smiling forehead", the other with a snake on his arm - stole the stones. And only if the stones are returned will the gods endow the natives with their wisdom. Everybody got that? Good, because I have the feeling that it's going to be very, very important.

Did you know that Obba Babatunde has also done the voice of Lando Calrissian? And
since Louis has the same voice as Jar-Jar Binks, it's almost like watching a Star Wars reunion
set in Australia.

By the way, during this entire scene Louis keeps making unfunny jokes. I mean, he's not mocking the natives or anything (thank goodness), he just keeps saying things like "Don't you just hate it when that happens?" and "Yeah, I could see how that could be a problem." I wish somebody would tell him to shut up.

Eventually, Louis puts on his jacket and the natives start bowing down before him. Why? Well, now the natives recognize him and Charlie as the two figures with the kangaroo in their Indigenous Australian art:

Huh. So apparently Kangaroo Jack fanart DOES exist. Who woulda thunk it?

"It is written YOU are the chosen ones," Chief Ankamuti tells them. "YOU will find the gems. YOU will save our people." So, the fate of the natives is in the hands of the two guys who put a jacket on a kangaroo they thought they ran over just to amuse themselves, then proceeded to chase said kangaroo all over Australia because it now had the money that was in the jacket's pocket. If I were in the natives' position, I would be very, very worried right now.

Louis asks just HOW, exactly, they're supposed to find the gems and save the natives. "Many years ago, there was a great leak in the cave," the chief explains. "Unfortunately, that part of the story's a little fuzzy." So with that, our three "heroes" drive off in their jeep debating whether or not there's any truth to the chief's claims of them being the chosen ones. But then they run out of gas near some kangaroos... one of whom is Jackie Legs!

"Look! It's the only reason why anyone watched the first movie!"

Louis identifies which kangaroo is Jackie by setting out some licorice. Apparently, in the first movie there was a gag about Jackie liking licorice.

But the reunion is interrupted by that most evil of all the Earth's creatures, poachers, showing up in jeeps to trap them some kangaroos. Fortunately, Jackie stops them from nabbing his mate and child. Unfortunately, they manage to nab HIM.

You can help save kangaroos by going to this website. Hey, if I can't be funny I should
at least spread awareness on animal welfare.

The poachers drive off with Jackie, but fortunately their camp isn't too far, so Charlie, Louis, and Jessie can follow them. They spy on the poachers as they put animals in crates... and once again, Louis NEVER SHUTS UP. Was Louis this annoying in the first film?

Uh... insert reference to that "Somebody's Watching Me" song here? It's the only thing
I can think of for this screencap...

I have a suggestion for the good guys - seeing as they're in Australia, perhaps they should give a call to the Koala Brothers? Remember that show? Here's the theme song to refresh your memory:

After some convincing from Louis, the protagonists sneak down to the camp to save Jackie, whose crate has been loaded into a truck. When some poachers show up, they hide in a crate with an emu. This leads to... get ready for this... A FART JOKE. Classy, fellas.

Okay, positive thing - the emu's expression is kind of funny.

Cut to Syndey International Airport the next morning. The crate that Charlie, Jessie, and Louis are in is being loaded onto a plane... and Louis is still farting. Because if there's one thing that's worse than a fart joke, it's an OVERLY LONG fart joke. One of the plane's crew members says that the animals are going to Las Vegas. "This is great!" Louis exclaims. "I've never been to Vegas. And now we're getting a free trip!" And on top of that, his cousin Ronald lives in Vegas, so Louis decides to give him a call. There's also a joke where Jessie has to put up with Louis shoving his butt in her face. Ha ha ha, fat people.

I wonder if Louis hails from Buttstonia.

"Who could possibly want all of these wild animals in Las Vegas?" Jessie wonders. We then cut to this guy who I assume is supposed to be a Steve Irwin parody.

Gee, I wonder if he's gonna turn out to be the villain.

Actually, my money's on the koala. Just look at that sneaky expression.

This is Outback Ollie (voiced by Jim Ward), who tells the kids in his audience that next week a bunch of his animal friends will be flying in from Australia to see them. After that, we cut to the crates arriving at some storage place in Las Vegas' airport. Charlie, Jessie, and Louis emerge from their crate and start looking for Jackie's, unaware that there are FBI agents watching them at the moment. They manage to find Jackie and bust him out of his crate, and Louis comes up with an idea to smuggle Jackie out of the airport.

One of the FBI agents says that Louis, Jesse and Charlie are either total idiots or total
geniuses. Guess which one they actually are.

Louis' idea is to dress Jackie in his jacket and sunglasses. Yeah, uh, sticking clothes on a kangaroo does not automatically mean that he doesn't look like a kangaroo. If you paint an elephant blue and put it in the middle of, I dunno, Times Square, people are still gonna notice that there's an elephant in Times Square. Just sayin'.

Also in the storage place are two shady-looking fellas (both voiced by Phil LaMarr). One of them is telling their boss through a cell phone that some folks are stealing their kangaroo. So now we have mobsters in this movie. I'd complain about how all of these characters are making the plot needlessly complicated, but to be fair, the first film had mobsters in it too. Of course, one of the mobsters in the first movie was Christopher Walken, so at least it had that going for it...

Also, these two have horrible fashion sense.

The mobsters apparently want Jackie because he has jewels on him. But enough about the mobsters, how are our heroes, and Louis, doing? Well, Louis' cousin Ronald (Keith Diamond) picks them up in his limo, and after they drive off it's revealed that the emu is out and about too.

Seriously, I was promised a talking kangaroo. I'm suing Warner Brothers for false advertising!

Ronald tells Charlie and Jessie that he's both a limo driver AND an exterminator... and just as I suspected, he's perfectly aware that there's a kangaroo in his limo despite Louis' attempt to "disguise" Jackie. Louis asks Ronald if they can borrow his exterminator truck so they can use it to drive Jackie into Los Angeles. Since nobody's looking for him there, they'll be able to ship him back to Australia (Jessie has friends in Alice Springs who can get him back to his family). Ronald, by now, thinks that he's on some sort of television show.

Or maybe his sanity has snapped. Wouldn't surprise me.

Eventually, Jackie comes to, sticks his head out the sunroof, and discovers that he's in the neon-lit bad CGI-filled world of Vegas!

This scene is accompanied by an awful rock song, by the way.

A party limo approaches Ronald's and the PARTY DUDES onboard, apparently too stoned to be weirded out by the fact that there's a kangaroo sticking its head out of a limo, invite Jackie to come party with them. So Jackie climbs onto the roof of the limo and tries to jump over to them... but, since he's a kangaroo, which can jump up to forty feet horizontally (and yes, I did Google that), he winds up flying over them and landing on the hood of another car.

From there, we get some WHACKY SHENANIGANS with the kangaroo jumping around from car to car and everybody freaking out over it... except for the PARTY DUDES, who as we've established are stoned off their gourds. Charlie, Jessie and Louis climb out of the limo to give chase, pursuing him into a hotel where Louis is distracted by a poster for a wrestling match.

Jackie winds up in a casino, where a lounge singer's crooning reminds him of how much he wants to get back to his mate and joey. And then we get one of those "the thing they're looking for is right behind them but they don't notice it, nyuck nyuck nyuck!" gags. Y'know, the kind that makes you want to scream "HE'S RIGHT BEHIND THEM! TURN YOUR HEADS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!" at them, and then wonder why you're yelling at characters in a movie who obviously can't hear you.

"Hey, wouldn't it be incredibly ironic if he were right behind us and we didn't know it?"

Then Jackie is finally noticed by the other people in the hotel when he helps himself to the salad in the food court, which gets the attention of some security guards. The result: MORE WHACKY SHENANIGANS! And the WHACKY SHENANIGANS continue as Jackie escapes into the casino. Eventually, Louis and Charlie follow him into a room where there's another animal: a panther in a cage.

"Make one Black Panther joke and I'll devour you both."

After Charlie and Louis strip down to their underwear (don't ask), the panther notices Jackie and becomes hungry. Because everybody knows that kangaroo's are a panther's natural prey. Do panthers even live in Australia? Nitpicks aside, Jackie manages to get away. Charlie and Louis, on the other hand? Methinks they're gonna be a panther's dinner.

I wouldn't recommend eating them, Mr. Panther. Charlie is bland and Louis' unfunnyness
will probably give you indigestion.

Apparently, the panther is part of a magician's act. The trick is supposed to be them turning a beautiful girl in a cage into a panther. But instead of the panther, the magician winds up conjuring Charlie and Louis! In their underwear! Oh, the hilarity!

Charlie and Louis are thrown out of the building, but wouldn't you know it? Those mobsters from before were there, too (I forgot to mention, they showed up in the hotel I believe at some point during the WHACKY SHENANIGANS), and they recognized Charlie and Louis as those two idiots who stole their kangaroo.

Dumb and Dumber meet back up with Jessie and Ronald in their limo, and as it's driving off the two mobsters get the license plate number. And wouldn't you know it, Jackie just so happens to be sneaking around behind the mobsters, but they don't see him.

Say, do you think they'll ever mention that shampoo business Charlie, Jackie and Louis are running again?

Just turn your heads, for... wait, why am I giving advice to the bad guys?

Suddenly, we're at a boxing match! It's Jackie vs. some muscular guy who doesn't even question why he's fighting a kangaroo! And then Jackie starts singing "I'm Gonna Knock You Out". I have no idea how we got here, or why Jackie is boxing (if this turns out to be another dream sequence, I swear...), but hey, at least we get to hear Jeff Bennett sing.

And at one point he becomes gigantic.

And wouldn't you know it? It's another dream sequence. Dang it, stop teasing us with a talking kangaroo and then going "PSYCH! It was just a dream!". I came here to see a Jeff Bennett-voiced kangaroo, not Charlie and Louis!

Jessie alerts Charlie and Louis to the TV doing a news report on how they smuggled a kangaroo carrying jewels out of a hotel. And Jackie is still at large. We even get a reference to Christopher Walken's character from the first film!

Is that supposed to be a Christopher Walken caricature? It doesn't look anything like him.

Charlie deduces that the jewels are hidden in the collar that Jackie is wearing. Fortunately, somebody calls Ronald up to tell him that he saw the kangaroo. But then, all of a sudden, two police officers who are TOTALLY not those mobsters in disguise show up and start interrogating them. Louis actually does something useful for once and knocks them out with a frying pan. Rapunzel would be proud.

Then Louis notices something - one of the mobsters has some sort of smile-shaped... wrinkle or something on his forehead. And the other one has a snake tattoo! Just like the chief said! Ergo, the jewels in Jackie's collar must be the ancient gems stolen from the tribe! Now they just have to find Jackie before anyone else does. Too bad Ronald double-crossed them and drove off without them.

Wah wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaah...

The good news is, Jessie finds Ronald's address book and the keys to his limo, so they can still get to Jackie. Louis continues to act annoying, Seriously, if you think Anthony Anderson is annoying, try a pale animated imitation of him. It's like... remember how Animaniacs would have caricatures of celebrities, and how the entire joke of their appearance would be that they're celebrities? Imagine if those celebrity caricatures were the protagonists of an entire movie.

Thanks to Louis' being obnoxious, the obviously CGI limo winds up flying off a cliff and causing property damage. But they manage to catch up with Ronald, who claims that he's totally going to split the reward with them once he turns in the kangaroo. Uh huh, sure...

So, whose house have they arrived at? A crazy old lady who believes in aliens (also Kath Souice).

She kind of reminds me of the crazy old lady from Ratatouille.

Jackie is indeed in the crazy old lady's backyard, but winds up getting away when Charlie and Louis get caught in a snare trap. After that, Louis suggests that they enlist the help of Outback Ollie. Alas, Ollie isn't exactly in a "helping them" mood when he recognizes them as the folks who stole his kangaroo. But after Louis explains to him their side of the story, he agrees to help. He gives them everything they'll need to save Jackie. Oh, and surprise! He's evil, and a mobster, and those two mobsters are his accomplices. He tells them that he's got a plan to get their hands on those diamonds and frame the good guys for it.

Warner Brothers Animation: doing "twist villains" long before films like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen,
and Big Hero 6.

The limo starts acting up, so Louis calls up Ronald and asks him for a ride. He refuses, but Outback Ollie lets them borrow his jeep, then follows them there in an obviously CGI helicopter.

They arrive at the lake, where Jackie is getting into some more WHACKY SHENANIGANS.

Side note - for whatever reason, animated Jackie Legs reminds me a LOT of Scooby-Doo.

Louis, Jessie, and Charlie steal a boat so they can have Louis water-ski over to Jackie and grab him. Only problem is, Louis is an awful water-skier. It's pathetic when a kangaroo is better at water sports than you. And Ronald is there, too. The SHENANIGANS, they get WHACKIER. Eventually, Outback Ollie and his goons throw a net over Jackie, and because Louis, Jessie, and Charlie don't know that Ollie is EEEEEEEEEE-VIL, they don't know that Ollie and his goons are taking the gems out of Ollie's collar and sticking worthless diamonds into the pocket of Louis' jacket, which they took off Jackie.

Ollie gives Louis his jacket, and then the police show up. Jessie tells them that if they check the collar on the kangaroo, the whole situation will be resolved... but there's nothing in the collar when they check it. There ARE, however, diamonds in Louis' jacket pocket.

"You're under arrest, Fat Albert!"

As they're being loaded into the police car, Charlie notices that Ollie is hanging out with the mobsters they encountered earlier. But it isn't until they're behind bars that he realizes, hey, Ollie is an evil smuggler. Now they just have to figure out a way to get out of jail. Fortunately, they're allowed one phone call. Unfortunately, Louis wastes it on calling Charlie, who he KNOWS IS ALSO IN JAIL, to ask him the name of that lawyer who's always on TV. Louis, you moron.

Why do Charlie and Jessie even keep this guy around?

Fortunately, Ronald shows up to save Louis, Charlie and Jessie, and they head to Outback Ollie's show to read him the riot act. "We know every-THANG!" Louis snaps. And the FBI is there, too, to drag Louis, Charlie and Jessie back to jail. Ronald, dressed up like a native (huzzah, more racism), declares that the mobsters came into their village and stole their gems. But before the FBI can arrest Ollie, he grabs Jessie to take as a hostage. Because of course it's the girl who he tries to take as a hostage. 

I almost feel like he should be taking LOUIS hostage. He's far more useless here than
Jessie is.

Ollie threatens to feed Jessie to the crocodiles if anybody tries anything. "Don't do it, Ollie! Think of the kids!" Louis exclaims. Ollie says that he hates kids, forgetting that he's currently being filmed by a camera and watched by an entire audience of kids, who promptly start booing him. And he hates animals, too. Fortunately, Jackie is there to knock Ollie down and then give him a butt-whooping.

"It's time for me to actually do something in the movie that has my name in the title!"

Jackie kicks Ollie into the crocodile pit, where he... surprisingly ISN'T devoured (I guess they thought that would be too dark for a kids' movie), but pursued by the crocodiles and chased up a tree. The mobsters get arrested, the good guys bring the animals and the gems back to Australia, and it turns out that Charlie and Louis WEREN'T the Chosen Ones after all. Charlie and Jessie give a big speech about how you don't have to be a chosen one to do great things, you just have to believe in yourself and blah-blah-blah.

The natives give them some fragrant berries they can use for their new shampoo, along with some sort of magic spell that makes them "one with nature". That means Jackie and the other animals can talk to them.

Finally, the kangaroo talks in something that isn't a dream sequence!

And we end with another fart joke.

What's the Verdict?

I still don't understand why this movie exists. Was anybody really asking for more of Kangaroo Jack? And why make it animated?

Even ignoring that, this film is mediocre at best. The animation's nice and the voice actors are doing their best with the material they've been given, but aside from that, there's nothing here that we haven't seen already in other, far better animated movies. Just like the first movie, Jackie Legs himself is basically a plot device. He rarely talks and is basically just there to hop around getting into WHACKY SHENANIGANS. They played us for saps twice. TWICE. All I can think of is that they thought having Jackie talk throughout the movie would be "unrealistic" (and magic spells aren't?), but Jackie says near the end that he was talking the whole time and they just couldn't understand him. Couldn't they have had some scenes with Jackie talking to himself? Maybe I could forgive this if the actual main characters were fun to watch, but they're not. Louis is really annoying and a really poor imitation of Anthony Anderson. I don't blame Ahmed Best for this (the poor guy has been through enough already), just the lame script he was given to work with. As for Charlie and Jessie, they're just boring. The villain is pretty dull too.

The only really good part of the movie is Jackie's cover of "I'm Gonna Knock You Out". You can find that scene on YouTube. As a whole, though, Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.! is not worth your time. After watching this, I'd say it's for the best that Warner Bros. didn't continue making animated sequels to their live action movies. I mean, can you imagine them doing a direct-to-video animated sequel to Unaccompanied Minors? Or Racing Stripes?

...remember Racing Stripes? That movie with the zebra who wants to be a race horse? Steve Harvey and David Spade voiced a couple of wisecracking flies in it? Anyone? Anyone at all?