The 22 Most Unhinged Moments of ‘I Believe In Santa’, Netflix’s Insane Christmas Movie
Who Is John Ducey, Star of ‘I Believe In Santa’ on Netflix?
Stream It or Skip It: ‘A Christmas to Treasure’ on Lifetime Sends Taylor Frey and Kyle Dean Massey on a Holiday Quest
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Storm for Christmas’ on Netflix, a Norwegian ‘Love Actually’-style Ensemble Comedy Series
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Atsuko Okatsuka: The Intruder’ On HBO Max, A New Voice In Comedy Makes Herself Known To America
‘SNL’ Recap: Cecily Strong’s Fond Farewell Ends Record Run On The Show
Drew Barrymore Twerks Her Way Onto ‘Ziwe’: “I’ve Always Had A Butt With A Mind Of Its Own”
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘I Love My Dad’ on Hulu, an Uncomfortable Dark Comedy Starring Patton Oswalt as a Dad Who Catfishes His Own Son
Who Plays Cora on ‘The Recruit’? Why Amanda Schull Looks So Familiar
David O. Russell Didn’t Shy Away From Offing Taylor Swift In Spectacular Fashion In ‘Amsterdam’
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths’ on Netflix, Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Flummoxing Self-Examination of Life and Art
‘Bardo’ Ending Explained: Alejandro Iñárritu’s Netflix Movie Comes With a Twist That Explains Everything
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Kangaroo Valley’ on Netflix, A Nature Doc With A Focus On Australia And Narration From ‘Succession’’s Sarah Snook
Lamar Odom Says “Drugs Was My Girlfriend” in Teaser for Fox’s TMZ Special ‘Lamar Odom: Sex, Drugs & Kardashians’
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari’ on Netflix, A Documentary About Escaping Natural Disaster That’s Lacking Fire
‘The View’ Freaks out Edie Falco by Turning Carmela Soprano Into an ‘Avatar’ Character
‘Dio: Dreamers Never Die’ Chronicles Singer’s Epic Journey To Metal’s Throne Room
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium’ on Disney+, Marking The Music Vet’s Final North American Performance
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Liam Gallagher: Knebworth 22’ on Paramount+, With The Ex-Oasis Frontman Returning To the Biggest Stage In British Music
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dio: Dreamers Never Die’ on Showtime, an Enthusiastic Documentary Celebration of Heavy Metal’s Greatest Singer
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Snow Day’ on Paramount+, a Remake of the Crappy Chevy Chase Comedy, But Now With Crappy Songs
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again’ on Disney+, an Animated Continuation of the Exhibits-Run-Amok Series
What Time Will ‘Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again’ Be on Disney+? How to Watch ‘Night at the Museum 4’
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules’ on Disney+, Some Fart Jokes Saddled With a Parable of Contentious Brotherhood
‘1923’ Stars James Badge Dale and Marley Shelton On John And Emma Dutton’s Marriage: “We’re Committed”
‘1923’ Stars Darren Mann And Michelle Randolph Says Jack And Elizabeth’s Love Story Is “Beautiful”
‘1923’ Stars Aminah Nieves And Jennifer Ehle Had “Safe Words” For Each Other On-Set
‘1923’ Star Brian Geraghty Teases Audiences Will “Go Home With Zane” At Some Point
Royal Gossip Hounds Aren’t Going To Find Much To Chew On In Prince Harry And Meghan Markle’s New Netflix Series ‘Live To Lead’
Madea’s Royal Rumpus! Tyler Perry Is Surprise Godfather To Harry and Meghan’s Daughter Lilibet After Sheltering The Family In His Los Angeles Home
‘Harry & Meghan’ Reveals That Samantha Markle Ran A Dozen Hate-Fueled Twitter Accounts Trolling Her Half-Sister
‘Harry & Meghan’ Has One Perfect Moment That Will Forever Change How You Feel About Prince William
When Will ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5, Episode 8 Air on Paramount Network?
‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 7 Recap: “The Dream Is Not Me”
‘1923’ Stars James Badge Dale and Marley Shelton On John And Emma Dutton’s Marriage: “We’re Committed”
‘1923’ Stars Darren Mann And Michelle Randolph Says Jack And Elizabeth’s Love Story Is “Beautiful”
Jennifer Coolidge Also Loved Chloe Fineman’s ‘SNL’ Impression of Her: “What a Feat”
Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby: The Hottest TV Shows of 2022
‘White Lotus’ Fans Shocked to Discover Jennifer Coolidge Was in ‘Seinfeld’ By Way Of This Viral TikTok
‘White Lotus’ Star Haley Lu Richardson Surprised By Call From Her Childhood Crush Nick Jonas On ‘The Late Late Show’
Why Isn’t ‘The View’ on Today? Here’s When ‘The View’ Returns With New Episodes
‘The View’ Freaks out Edie Falco by Turning Carmela Soprano Into an ‘Avatar’ Character
Alyssa Farah Griffin Rips Trump’s “Pokémon Presidency” After NFT Drop on ‘The View’: “Looks Like a 3 a.m. Infomercial”
Alyssa Farah Griffin Won’t Stand For Harry And Meghan’s Claims That They’re “Suffering” On ‘The View’: “You Live” in a “$30 Million House”
Joe Biden Says He’s The “Brunt” of Jill Biden’s Jokes on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’: “I’d Prefer It Wasn’t Always About Me”
Drew Barrymore Twerks Her Way Onto ‘Ziwe’: “I’ve Always Had A Butt With A Mind Of Its Own”
Drew Barrymore Struggles to Finish Interview After ‘Emily in Paris’ Star Lucien Laviscount Hits on Her: “This Has Never Happened to Me”
Savannah Guthrie and Drew Barrymore Fight Over Human-Sized Teddy Bear on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’: “Are You Taking My Man?”
This week in Talking Animals What Never Shut Their Damn Yaps is Netflix’s Back to the Outback, an animated comedy in which a multitude of celebrities provide voices for snakes, spiders and other dangerous Australian animals who are sick and tired of getting a bad rap just because their venom and/or mouth daggers can murder the snot out of you. Isla Fisher, Guy Pearce, Eric Bana, Tim Minchin, Kylie Minogue, Keith Urban, Jacki Weaver and a pile of others remind egocentric Americans that they’re Australian with their island-continent brogues as their colorful characters start in the zoo and [INSERT MOVIE TITLE HERE], flinging one-liners and syrupy sentiments with equal willy-nilliness. Will we care? Or is this just another generic Netflix cartoon?
The Gist: An Australian wildlife park outside Sydney has a helluva tagline: “Home to the cutest animals in the world” is its boast. It’s a highly Instagrammable place and, perhaps apropos of nothing, that rhymes with “flammable.” OK, t’s not literally so, but symbolically, because the park is run by Chaz (Bana), who likes to manhandle his totes adorbs terrifying creatures as throngs of onlookers gasp and faint. Maddie (Fisher) is a taipan snake whose venom, Chaz blusters, can kill 100 people in 10 seconds, which would be quite a feat, since it would require biting and envenomating 10 people per second. Do the math, Chaz! Anyway, Maddie’s a very sensitive and sweet snake, just like her best pals, an anxious scorpion named Nigel (Angus Imrie), an escape-artist thorny devil lizard named Zoe (Miranda Tapsell), a somewhat horny funnel-web spider named Frank (Pearce) and a big croc named Jackie (Weaver), who’s the matriarch of this motley crew of unhuggables, who just wanna be hugged.
None of the animals is particularly pleased with this situation, which frequently requires that annoying wannabe Dundee/Croc Hunter dope thrusting their fangs and spines in the faces of screaming children, something you’d think would inspire issues with the insurance company. That’s not all – adding further insult is the existence of Pretty Boy (Minchin), an internationally famous, koala who’s so lusciously ambrosial, kids line up for his photo, he has a Nobel Peace Prize on his shelf and Freud would put his ego in a display case. It sure would be totally nutbutters if Maddie and co. ended up stuck with Pretty Boy as they journey through bustling urban centers and across blazing deserts, running into a rogue’s gallery of other ugly-on-the-outside/squishy-on-the-inside animals – bats, sharks, Tasmanian devils, dung beetles – as they try to get [INSERT MOVIE TITLE HERE], with that douche Chaz on their tails, wouldn’t it? Theoretically.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Weirdo animals escaping the zoo to get back to their roots is a premise lifted wholesale from Madagascar. Maybe the filmmakers will come up with something more original if they dare to make Back to the Outback 2: The Dung Beetles’ Revenge.
Performance Worth Watching: I’m sure Minchin thoroughly relished the opportunity for a throwaway one-liner meta-joke about getting to meet the Pope.
Memorable Dialogue: Disregarding the multiple incidences of the movie title being word-for-word quoted in the dialogue, I’ll settle for Chaz’s hardcore-survivalist commitment to finding his escaped animals: “We’ll face danger, we’ll face death, we’ll drink each other’s urine!”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Thankfully, our survival of this movie isn’t contingent upon consuming our own gross bodily excretions, although we will have to endure a tarantula-puke scene. Back to the Outback is mostly generally perfectly acceptable formulaic family-movie fodder. It’s colorful and looks nice, but so do a bevy of Dreamworks, Netflix and Sony animation efforts that will go unnamed here because they failed to distinguish themselves and we therefore forgot they existed.
Very few of those movies are particularly offensive, but they tend to cover the same territory: zingy dialogue, dollops of sentiment, needle drops, pop-culture references, celeb cameos, poop and vomit jokes and a fast-paced, action-packed, cliff-dangling finale that’s too loud by half. This particular film covers thematic fodder about the importance of making one’s own family, the desire to find one’s roots and the idea that one’s beauty comes from within, all stuff that one should find depressingly familiar if one has seen more than one movie in one’s life.
Outback does some things right, maybe in its HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL anti-zoo subtext, and more likely in its noticeably shifting points-of-view: The reptile and bug protagonists see themselves as wide-eyed, emotionally delicate and complex creatures, although when directors Clare Knight and Harry Cripps shift to human perspectives, they’re hissing, threatening monsters. Of course, the underlying idea is, they’re as scared of us as we are of them, so can’t we all just get along, and maybe invite sharks over for tea and constructive dialogue instead of vilifying them all the time? You know, what’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding? That’s a perfectly fine message, but the bigger question is, can’t the movie get it across without a vain koala trying in vain to make us laugh, and recurring Phil Collins references?
Our Call: I’m being a tad too harsh. Back to the Outback is an adequate time-waster for young audiences, even if it’s not particularly original or funny. Parents won’t quite need to shoot themselves with a tranq dart to survive it, but it probably wouldn’t hurt. STREAM IT, just don’t expect much.
Will you stream or skip the animated Australian comedy #BackToTheOutback on @netflix? #SIOSI
— Decider (@decider) December 14, 2021
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.
Stream Back to the Outback on Netflix
This story has been shared 3,849 times.
This story has been shared 2,136 times.
This story has been shared 721 times.
This story has been shared 700 times.
This story has been shared 589 times.
This story has been shared 521 times.
This story has been shared 520 times.
This story has been shared 435 times.
This story has been shared 427 times.
This story has been shared 413 times.
This story has been shared 366 times.
This story has been shared 340 times.
This story has been shared 273 times.
This story has been shared 271 times.
This story has been shared 259 times.
