Hot-buttered opinion on the latest flicks

Kangaroo Jack

Fri., Jan. 17, 2003 12:00 AM PST

C-

If you're thinking this is just a warm, fuzzy flick about cuddly kangaroos, you don't know Jack. It is a Jerry Bruckheimer production, after all, so even this family-oriented Outback outing includes car chases, plane crashes and a cliffhanger climax (literally). When mobsters send Brooklyn buddies Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson (the requisite chunky, funny friend) Down Under to deliver $50,000, the duo crosses paths with a kangaroo--which ends up hopping off across the desert with the cash. With assistance from conservationist Estella Warren (the pretty but stiff love interest), O'Connell and Anderson pursue the kickboxing, moolah-hoarding marsupial as gangsters pursue them. The tykes might laugh in the right places, but this is still horribly formulaic, the humor's dopey and the CGI-animated kangaroo outacts the real people. Don't let Jack steal your money, too.