Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas To All!’ on CBS and Paramount+, Where The Singer Continues To Secure Her “Queen Of Christmas” Bid
Pee-Wee Herman’s 1988 Christmas Special Proved There’s Nothing Sinister About Offering Youngsters an Alternative to Strait-Laced Normalcy
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Le Pupille’ on Disney+, a Delightful Christmas Short About Nuns, Orphans and the Great Cake That Stands Between Them
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Violent Night’ on Streaming, Starring David Harbour as a Santa Who Can Unleash Hell When He Has To
Michelle Yeoh Threatens to Beat Up Golden Globes Pianist: “Shut Up, Please”
Ke Huy Quan’s Groundbreaking Golden Globe Win Is Everything (Everywhere All At Once)
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bromates’ on Hulu, a Crass Comedy That Lil Rel Howery Can’t Liven Up
Viral Tweet About Steve Martin and Diane Keaton in ‘Father of the Bride’ Raises Questions About Aging: “This Was Supposed to Be What 45-Year-Olds Looked Like”
‘The Fabelmans’ Wins Best Picture, Drama At the 2023 Golden Globes
Austin Butler’s Golden Globes Speech Roasted On Twitter: “Can’t Believe He’s Still Using That Elvis Voice”
It’s Paul Mescal’s Year, We’re Just Living In It
‘Days of Our Lives’ Star Quinn Redeker Dead at 86
2023 Golden Globes Host: Meet Jerrod Carmichael
What Time Are The Golden Globes on Tonight? How to Find A Golden Globes Livestream
Where Is Kai From ‘The Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker’ Now? Netflix Documentary Tells the True Story Caleb McGillvary
Billy Bush Caught on Hot Mic Making Sexual Comment About Kendall Jenner on ‘Extra’
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sometimes When We Touch’ on Paramount+, A Doc That Observes The Rise And Legacy Of The ’70s Soft Rock Sound
‘Depeche Mode 101’ Is ‘80s Synth Pop Postcard And Reality TV Blueprint
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Qala’ on Netflix, An Indian Movie That Will Remind You Of ‘Black Swan’
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Encanto At The Hollywood Bowl’ on Disney+, Where The Animated Hit Is Brought To Vibrant Life On Stage
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Strange World’ on Disney+, an Animated Saga With Grand Visuals, Preachy Themes and Forgettable Characters
What Time Will ‘Strange World’ Be on Disney+?
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sonic Prime’ on Netflix, A New Adventure for Fans Who Just Wanna Go Fast
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Snow Day’ on Paramount+, a Remake of the Crappy Chevy Chase Comedy, But Now With Crappy Songs
Will ‘The Kardashians’ Return for Season 3 on Hulu?
‘The Kardashians’ Season 2 Finale Reveals How North West’s Iconic “Stop” Sign Moment Happened
Kim Kardashian Says She Travels “With a Cup in the Backseat of the Car” for “Pee Anxiety” on ‘The Kardashians’
Every Pete Davidson Moment in ‘The Kardashians,’ From Showering With Kim to Remembering How She Rejected Him
‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 8: 5 Things You May Have Missed, From The Return of Jimmy To Beth’s Horrible Discovery
‘1923’ Episode 3 Recap: “The War Has Come Home”
‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Will Return This Summer
‘1923’ Season 1 Episode 2 Recap: “Nature’s Empty Throne”
Golden Globes Winners List 2023: Live Updates Of 80th Golden Globes Awards Winners
Is ‘Yellowstone’ on Tonight? ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Return Date Info
‘Yellowstone’ Star Wes Bentley Says Taylor Sheridan Already Knows How Series Will End
‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Episode 8: 5 Things You May Have Missed, From The Return of Jimmy To Beth’s Horrible Discovery
‘Copenhagen Cowboy’ Episode 6 Recap: I’ll Be Back
‘Copenhagen Cowboy’ Episode 5 Recap: Gang War
‘Copenhagen Cowboy’ Episode 4 Recap: I Want a New Drug
‘Copenhagen Cowboy’ Episode 3 Recap: Maniac Mansion
Alyssa Farah Griffin Clashes With Sunny Hostin Over Biden Holding Onto Classified Documents on ‘The View’: “Huge Win For Trump”
Sunny Hostin Slams Accusations She Bought Her Son’s Way into Harvard on ‘The View’
Ana Navarro Says Prince Harry Is “Embarrassing and Humiliating His Family” Amid Shocking Book Tour on ‘The View’
‘The View’ Decries Chaos of House Speaker Vote: “Clown Show” and “Real Housewives Reunion”
Drew Barrymore Struggles to Finish Trampoline Workout: “I Should’ve Worn a Bra!”
Stacey Abrams Dishes on Her Dating Preferences on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’
Drew Barrymore Prank Calls the Wrong Luke Wilson With Kate Hudson on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’
Drew Barrymore and Ross Mathews Do the ‘Titanic’ Pose After He Accidentally Steals Her Joke on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’
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 4,875 times.
This story has been shared 2,376 times.
This story has been shared 1,760 times.
This story has been shared 1,615 times.
This story has been shared 1,587 times.
This story has been shared 1,502 times.
This story has been shared 1,060 times.
This story has been shared 960 times.
This story has been shared 545 times.
This story has been shared 465 times.
This story has been shared 443 times.
This story has been shared 435 times.
This story has been shared 347 times.
This story has been shared 278 times.
This story has been shared 248 times.
