“The Kangaroo Conspiracy”: this time Marc-Uwe Kling directs himself

Two years after “The Kangaroo Chronicles”, Marc-Uwe Kling is bringing the anarchic marsupial back to the cinema and this time even directing it himself. In dealing with climate change deniers, 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”.

Meanwhile, four celebrated novels have been thrown in with the trilogy “The Kangaroo Chronicles”, “The Kangaroo Manifesto” and “The Kangaroo Revelation” and the encore “The Kangaroo Apocrypha”. In addition, there are the audiobooks read by the author himself, with which he gave his housemate, who is addicted to schnapps, his unmistakable voice. A film adaptation appeared in cinemas under the title of the first book in 2020, which, however, had to be the result of the first corona lockdown after a week.

Not discouraged by this, Marc-Uwe Kling immediately started working on the second part, which is now available under the title “The Kangaroo Conspiracy”. While countless ideas from all the novels were mixed up somewhat arbitrarily and pointlessly for the first film, this time Kling delivers a completely new story. And instead of relying again 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”.

Road trip to Bielefeld

Unfortunately Marc-Uwe (Dimitrij Schaad) still couldn’t 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. romantic reckoning. When Maria complains to the two about her suffering regarding her mother Lisbeth (Petra Kleinert), who, like Diesel Lisl, has become entangled in the net of climate deniers and conspiracy theorists, a bet is made. The comedian and his roommate want to bring Lisbeth back on the path of reason and truth. If that works out, Marc-Uwe gets a date with Maria in Paris and the kangaroo gets her son’s game console. If that doesn’t work, they will lose their large apartment to both and they will have to settle for considerably fewer square meters from now on.

On their road trip to the Conspiracy Convention in Bielefeld, where they meet Adam Krieger (Benno Führmann), who is in charge, all kinds of strange things happen. Maria’s incredibly popular, incredibly talented and socially engaged ex Joe (Michael Ostrowski) has to help them out of many a problem. In the end, for Marc-Uwe and his sassy furry friend, it’s about much more than just their apartment, a game console and a date in Paris. The self-proclaimed lateral thinkers even seek their lives.

Piecemeal with pointy jokes

After the “The Kangaroo Chronicles” comic seemed like a patchwork of the best jokes from Kling’s books without actually firing up, the timing of the jokes is much better this time around. Especially because Kling took charge himself and because of his work he has a good feeling for good punchlines at the right time. The fact that he had already written the story before the world was paralyzed by a pandemic and the climate debate is only now really gaining momentum, benefits him, because the content of the story seems cutting-edge.

Like his books, in which Kling strings together disjointed events, the story of conspiracy myths and their beneficiaries only serves as a framework for many anarchic kangaroo statements and original movie quotes. Admittedly, all this is fun to watch and makes for more laughter than in the first part, as little performers and kangaroo are staged with more love and are much more attuned to each other in front of the camera. But a little more depth and a tighter story, in which the supporting roles are not just a side note, would certainly have done the film well. And as quickly as the jokes are often fired, the quiet moments again slow the story down, some even coming to nothing. Nevertheless, “The Kangaroo Conspiracy” delivers 103 minutes of good entertainment and an amused look at the madness going on in the minds of the tinfoil hat wearers.

“The Kangaroo Conspiracy” hits German cinemas on August 25.