‘Kangaroo Jack’… Why?

Fifteen years ago today, the buddy-action crime comedy Kangaroo Jack hopped its way into movie theaters. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Jerry O’Connell, Anthony Anderson, and a rambunctious kangaroo named Jack, the film went on to earn over $88 million at the box office as well as a reputation for being an easy punchline. Sure, you can dismiss Kangaroo Jack — a film Las Vegas Weekly’s Josh Bell called “a bizarre experiment in kangaroo torture”— as a 24/7 all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of disaster, but there’s a segment of our population who enjoy the antics of not only Kangaroo Jack but also Human Anthony Anderson and Human Jerry O’Connell.

Kangaroo Jack, a movie UK Critic’s Ian Waldron-Mantgani called “crap,” has an 8% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes but a 4.4/5.0 rating on Amazon. For comparison, Moonlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, currently holds a 3.9/5.0 rating. In fairness though, Moonlight features little to no kangaroos.

The plot of the movie revolves around life-long best friends who get mixed up with the mob and… actually… why complicate things?

We good here?

To celebrate the film’s fifteenth anniversary, we’ll revisit the good, the bad, and the “Why the hell does this film exist?” of it all as we attempt to add a bit of nuance to a kangaroo named Jack.

An Argument For Why Kangaroo Jack Isn’t The Worst Endeavor Ever Embarked Upon By A Human Being:

To answer Michael Scott’s vexing “Why are you the way that you are?” quandary, the reason Kangaroo Jack is a cacophonous mix of buddy comedy, family film, a clown on Death row having a fever dream, and animal caper is that God does not exist. KIDDING. Originally, the film had a darker tone, but as Jerry O’Connell explained in his April 2017 interview with Vice, it didn’t test well. That led to changes that made the film more appropriate for children and directly resulted in the advertising campaign focusing on a tacked-on “talking kangaroo” scene, which deceived audiences. Kangaroo Jack is not about a talking kangaroo. It’s about a carefree kangaroo with a penchant for mischief and theft.

Despite dismal reviews, like the New York Observer’s Rex Reed calling it “89 minutes of pure agony,” Kangaroo Jack opened at number one, finishing ahead of the premiering Martin Lawrence/Steve Zahn action comedy National Security and Jason Lee/Julia Stiles/Selma Blair rom-com A Guy Thing.

A few reasons why Kangaroo Jack might not be the worst movie of all time:

1. Kangaroo Jack, the fictitious animal, was nominated for Best Virtual Performance at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards. Huh. How about that? I’m going to type that sentence again, just to feel alive. Kangaroo Jack, the fictitious animal, was nominated for Best Virtual Performance at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards.

Unfortunately, the mercurial marsupial lost to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I know what you’re thinking: Were the 2003 MTV Movie Awards fixed? I have no concrete evidence, but between you, me, and the producers of the film You, Me, and Dupree, I have my suspicions.

Apropos of nothing, here’s the website to nominate writers for a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.

2. Jerry O’Connell and Anthony Anderson are not bad in this movie; they do the best they can with the material they’re given. It’s not easy to play two buffoons routinely outsmarted by a character best described as Chester Cheetah’s third cousin, but the two are game for anything and don’t phone it in, which is admirable.

3. It features a scene in which Christopher Walken, who I’m 99% sure was blackmailed into appearing in KJ, takes part in some adorable vocabulary lessons.

The word Walken was defining in the scene was paycheck.

An Argument For Why Kangaroo Jack Is A Cinematic Abomination:

Let’s set aside that the movie is a tonal disaster — I’m talking Jason Vorhees selling life insurance levels of inconsistency — and focus on the plot. JOC and A Squared accidentally run over a kangaroo with their jeep. Believing the kangaroo has bounced its last bounce, they dress it up in a hoodie and sunglasses and pose for pictures with the deceased animal, you know, like a bunch of sociopaths.

The kangaroo wakes up, beats up O’Connell, and escapes wearing the hoodie… that contains $50,000 of the mob’s money!?

Ignoring the blatant sexism and lazy stereotypes that pervaded early-2000 comedies, there’s a lot to roll your eyes at when watching Kangaroo Jack:

Tell me about it, Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon. Tell me about it.

Even though Jack didn’t actually speak in the film — except in a rapping fantasy sequence best described as NO — the closing credits were like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be neat if the actual movie were like this?”

Finally, in case you were wondering if the intricate plot might be too complex to follow…

Ohh, that’s Jack? The Kangaroo? Got it.

Anyway, I spent $3.99 to rent this Award-winning movie, and I truly regret it. I say award-winning because the film won a Blimp Award at the 2004 Kids’ Choice Awards for Favorite Fart in a Movie. Happy fifteenth birthday, Kangaroo Jack.

Where to stream Kangaroo Jack