One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I am focusing my attention on the story of 'Dot and the Kangaroo'. Now I am reviewing a film that can only be seen by a British audience on YouTube unless in this case, you happen to own a multi-region DVD Player. Therefore, I am composing this review to the best of what I have managed to gather from watching the film on YouTube. Anyway here goes, the film is based on the posthumous 1899 novel of the same name by Ethel C. Pedley (1859-1898).The film begins with 5-year-old Dot (Barbara Frawley) lost and alone in the woods of New South Wales after asking her parents' permission to go off exploring only to fall down an embankment. Wondering through the woods and encountering wild animals, the child is thankfully found by a mother kangaroo (Joan Bruce who also plays Dot's mother) who has lost her joey and therefore is inclined to help Dot. Thus Dot embarks on an amazing musical adventure through the wilds of the Australian Outback in the safety of the kangaroo's pouch.Now, the kangaroo can keep Dot safe but she cannot help her alone and the other animals of the forest cannot help them either, mostly due to their anger towards humans. 'What have the humans ever done for us?' Some of the animals ask aloud despite most of them being friendly towards Dot. Indeed, by this time, Dot's parents have realised their daughter's absence and her father (Ron Haddrick) and grandfather are looking for her.The other animals put their anger to one side upon hearing of the kangaroo's reasons for helping Dot and recommend seeking help from the platypus couple (June Salter and the great Spike Milligan). This our heroines do, discovering the Jenolan caves that are along the way and learning of the mythological Bunyip of Indigenous Australian legend from the Aboriginal Art that graces the walls of these caves.The platypus couple are no more trusting towards mankind as the rest of the animal kingdom but their advice leads our heroines to the more friendly Willie-Wagtail (Ross Higgins) and hopefully lead Dot home. It also leads to a brief encounter with some aborigines and their dingoes near the Blue Mountains, which only serves to further strengthen the bond between Dot and the red kangaroo. Of course, there is only so long that such a bond can hold without potentially upsetting the balance of Nature.In a ground-breaking (for its time) film that will pull at the heart-strings of its audience to an extreme degree, directors Yoram and Sandra Gross go to great lengths to portray the negative impact of Mankind on Nature from around 1884 onwards, as is emphasised in the book as well as portraying animated characters within a live-action setting. Indeed, the film certainly goes some way to achieving this goal as it was successful enough to spawn eight sequels, each of which featuring young Dot learning more about what her kind have done and are still doing to the Animal kingdom and some in cases, to themselves.Therefore, young Dot will continue to strive to get that message across to the rest of her kind whatever it takes even if it means going on more adventures or dare I say it, exposing some of the more negative aspects of Dot's character that you will not really see as such in the earlier sequels. Good luck trying to find the time to watch the remainder of Dot's adventures because eight sequels is a lot to get through and if you ask me, the style, quality and appeal of the animation (not to mention the plots) will gradually start to vary and not always for the better. Of course this is just my personal opinion, and as the old saying goes, 'Each to their Own'.

Well I must agree I haven't seen this in a long time since I was five, but now after seeing it again I understood everything.If you play close attention you might learn something, it's fun while it lasts though you gotta admit the scene when they sing about the bunyip is creepy especially the background music for it.But the rest is very enjoyable but fair enough although it doesn't exactly have a happy ending and it's a bit heart-wrenching when you do I should know after seeing it again when we got to the end, I couldn't help it, it was so sad it made me and my sister cry. Well who wouldn't at seeing how much Dot misses her friend already...But there's a moral for those after seeing the end don't be sad for all we know someday those two friends will meet again and she's not gone forever and would't want her friend sad plus she'll live in your heart no matter what.That's all that matters out of all the scale it's very lovely movie I suggest if kids are gonna watch this watch it with their folks for support and understanding

Wow! One of the greatest movies I have ever seen. Because of the great voice talent? Not really. For the amazing animation? Hardly. (Worse than 60's HB's). The animated characters on a live-action background? That helped convince me to rent it after my wife's reminiscing. But when she told me that it was a sad cartoon movie and doesn't have a standard happy ending, I said, "Oh, we must see this." Being an Austrailian film, it's not easy to find, (We wrote a few e-mails to Netflix before it became available) but well worth it. It is very touching and bold, and the characters are deeper than the animation leads you to believe. Yoram Gross's vision, assumably, was to expose kids to the Bush's' point of view which he did a swell job. Overall, a frolicking adventure that opens with a girl (Dot) crying because she is lost in the bush. The kangaroo that finds and helps her has also lost her joey. After the parents give up on her and the roo is almost killed protecting Dot, she returns home never to see her friend again. I have never in my life seen such a sad kids movie but my two young daughters were both moved and very much enjoyed it. A MUST on many levels.

This film was repeatedly shown on british TV early on Saturday mornings, and I NEVER missed it. Boy did I love this film in the 80's whilst growing up. Well now nearly 30 (BOO HOO!!), nostalgia starts kicking in and I started to remember what I loved about the 80's. I remembered this movie and set off using the world wide web to track a copy down. I found help from a most unusual source, the director himself! Yoram Gross helped me obtain, via e-mails from Oz, a DVD copy. HOW COOL! Was I disapointed?No............The film looks dated, then so do I. Compared to the excellent CGI these days used for animated giants like Shrek and Toy Story this comes last in the egg and spoon race. But this film oodles charm. The story is very innocent, even compared to Shrek and Toy Story, and children will love it. Now I'm definately not one of those people who bang on about films causing kids to rebel and hurt, maim and kill folks. But if you are this film will only cause your kids to "jump in the pouch of a red kangaroo, hippety hoppety, hippety hop". I had not heard the songs for maybe 20 years yet still knew nearly every word. The way the animation is mixed with real time footage is charming and adds to the film, even if Roger Rabbit did it 100 times better. The animals are truly adorable and you warm to them all, exept the Bunyip which is just frightening enough for the age it's aimed at, still don't wanna meet one at 30 though!!!So dated, yes. Fun, massively. Heart warming, definately. Memorable.........."Quack, quack, quack, quack, all we wanna do all day is quack.......quack, quack......QUACK!"