Die Känguru-Verschwörung

First of all, the talking CGI-kangaroo is only a gimmick. It is named "Kangaroo" and voiced by the author Marc-Uwe Kling. No explanation is given, it's just there. It doesn't do anything important a human actor couldn't have done, and everybody treats it as something entirely normal. It's not from some kind of alien kangaroo culture, it talks and acts just like some average young guy. It looks different, that's the whole point. And it is female, because - News Flash for Mr. Kling! - male kangaroos don't have a pouch.

The story: Marc-Uwe, the housemate of Kangaroo, loves Maria, the single mother next door. After another date went wrong, he manages to get her to accept a bet. If he wins there will be a last try for a romantic date - in Paris. To win that prize, he has to destroy Maria's mother's believe in conspiracy theories. Which one? All of them, everything ever labeled as a conspiracy theory. There is no differentiation in this movie, it's just one big conspiracy blob. Then the father of the child reappears, who had been a political prisoner in North Korea. He is welcomed by Maria and the bet should be off, the film should end. Everything else would be creepy - and it is: Marc-Uwe still wants to have his prize, still wants to get into her pants.

There are a lot of gratuitous filler scenes in this movie, a lot of cringe worthy dialogues, there is much hate and precious little that's fun or funny. At its core is the proudly ignorant depiction of "conspiracy theorists" as braindead, fanatic, violent sectarians, whose thoroughly baseless ideas invariably turn them into right wing extremists. Maybe the script was written by a 14-year-old pupil after watching some YT- or PBS-rants, who was mainly concerned with not writing anything that could be interpreted as any kind of sympathy or understanding or even some kind of humanization of the "conspiracy theorists", because that would surely anger his teacher. The "discussions" are just buzz words and slogans. It's a borefest, "Reefer Madness"-level of propaganda. Mind you, that movie from 1936 became a campy cult classic 40 years later, so there might be hope for this one.

Already, in May 2023, some of the things in this movie really didn't age well. The salute of the "conspiracy theorists" is "Stay woke!" - while doing the All Seeing Eye hand sign. Lol. In one endless filler scene, Marc-Uwe lectures a soldier about the evilness of his profession. As an obvious supporter of the Green Party, due to the war in the Ukraine, he would now sing a very different tune. Talk about the "deindustrialisation of Germany" is one of the examples given for the utter insanity of the errant truth seekers. Today the collapse of the energy supply and the deindustrialisation of Germany are hot topics and parts of mainstream discussions. Double lol! The times have been a-changing.

The mindset of this movie - believe everything the authorities tell you or we'll call you a nazi - is dangerous. The escalating war against "fake news", "disinformation", "conspiracy theories" and so forth is an actual threat to democracy, because it is led by people who could actually end it, and there is ONE fundamental freedom without that all the others will erode and disappear. On the other hand, the millions of kooks, simpletons, esoterics, potheads and what have you that believe in all kinds of preposterous things are mostly marginalised and completely harmless. It is absolutely fine to make fun of them, but "The Kangaroo Conspiracy" demonizes them, declares open season on them, unrestrainedly punching down. Therefore it is a blessing that this movie is that bad. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 20)