Producer Jerry Bruckheimer adapts his buddy formula for the adolescent set and the result is pretty much what you'd expect from him: an attempt to push the envelope by delivering enough sex and violence to titillate the pre-teens who are likely to be the primary audience and who will know something funky's going on even if they don't get it. Other than that, there's really nothing left to comment on in this chase comedy about a kangaroo that's holding fifty thousand dollars worth of mob money in the Australian outback. It's not bad, necessarily (the kids will love it and the digital effects as far as the kangaroo is concerned are okay), but it's not good either: everything wallows in mediocrity, from the unfunny script (by Steve Bing and Scott Rosenberg, one of the writers of `High Fidelity') that can't even provide decent scatological humor to David NcNally's faceless direction to the blank performances by leads Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson and Estella Warren. Even the chase scenes drone on and on. About the only things of interest are wondering how low Christopher Walken can go for a paycheck and marveling at Dyan Cannon's remarkable sixty-five year old body (even though she's only in the movie about fifteen seconds).
Review of Kangaroo Jack
