Two years after “The Kangaroo Chronicles”, Marc-Uwe Kling brings the anarchic marsupial back to the cinema and this time even directs it himself. In dealing with deniers of climate change, the film hits the mark, at least thematically.
With the invention of his kangaroo 14 years ago, author and stand-up comedian Marc-Uwe Kling laid the foundation for a career that is unprecedented in this country. Kling himself probably did not expect that the nameless marsupial would become the greatest success of his extensive work to date when he brought it to life acoustically on the Fritz radio station with the radio column “News from the Kangaroo”.
In the meantime, there are four celebrated novels with the trilogy “The Kangaroo Chronicles”, “The Kangaroo Manifesto” and “The Kangaroo Revelation” as well as the encore “The Kangaroo Apocrypha” pushed in between. Added to this are the audio books read by the author himself, with which he gave his roommate, who was addicted to schnapps, his unmistakable voice. In 2020, under the title of the first book, a film adaptation was released in the cinemas, which, however, had to result from the first corona lockdown after just one week.
Not discouraged by this, Marc-Uwe Kling immediately started work on the second part, which is now also available under the title “The Kangaroo Conspiracy”. While numerous ideas from all the novels were mixed together somewhat randomly and meaninglessly for the first film, this time Kling delivers a completely new story. And instead of once again relying on Dani Levi as director, he took over the job himself. Dimitrij Schaad plays him again, while Volker Zack embodies the kangaroo later animated by the VFX company “Trixter Film”.
Unfortunately, Marc-Uwe (Dimitrij Schaad) still wasn’t able to land with his neighbor Maria (Rosalie Thomass), and that was probably also because the kangaroo (Volker Zack, voiced by Marc-Uwe Kling) repeatedly threw a line through them makes the romantic reckoning. When Maria complains to the two about her suffering regarding her mother Lisbeth (Petra Kleinert), who as Diesel Lisl has got caught in the net of climate deniers and conspiracy theorists, a bet develops. The cabaret artist and his roommate want to bring Lisbeth back onto the path of reason and truth. If they succeed, Marc-Uwe gets a date with Maria in Paris and the kangaroo gets her son’s game console. If they don’t succeed, they lose their large apartment to the two of them and have to be satisfied with significantly less square meters from now on.
On their road trip to the Conspiracy Convention in Bielefeld, where they meet Adam Krieger (Benno Führmann), the scene’s puller, among others, all sorts of strange things happen. Maria’s incredibly popular, incredibly talented and socially committed ex Joe (Michael Ostrowski) has to help them out of many a jam. In the end, for Marc-Uwe and his cheeky furry friend, it’s about a lot more than just their apartment, a games console and a Paris date. The self-proclaimed lateral thinkers even seek their lives.
After the strip “The Kangaroo Chronicles” seemed like a patchwork of the best gags from Kling’s books without really igniting, the timing of the jokes is much better this time. Certainly also because Kling took on the direction himself and, due to his job, has a good sense for good punch lines at the right moment. The fact that he had already written the story before the world was paralyzed by a pandemic and the climate debate was only really gaining momentum now benefits him, as the content of the story seems cutting-edge.
Similar to his books, in which Kling strings together incoherent events, the story about conspiracy myths and their beneficiaries only serves as a framework for lots of anarchic kangaroo sayings and original film quotes. Admittedly, all this is fun to watch and makes for more laughs than in the first part, because small artists and kangaroo are staged with more love and are much better attuned to each other in front of the camera. But a little more depth and a more stringent narrative, in which the supporting roles aren’t just a side note, would certainly have done the film good. And as fast as the gags are often fired off, the quiet moments slow down the story again, some of them even come to nothing. Nonetheless, “The Kangaroo Conspiracy” delivers 103 minutes of good entertainment and an amused look at the madness that’s going on in the minds of the tinfoil hat wearers.
“The Kangaroo Conspiracy” will be in German cinemas from August 25th.
