YMMV / Back to the Outback

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Drops of Frank’s vomit from feeling queasy vaporizing a man’s café menu and turning his hair into a green mohawk. Before this he pukes on Pretty Boy while they are flying through the air, and a single drop also falls in the man's coffee, but nothing strange happens in those two instances. Nothing like it ever happens in the film again, and what makes this joke even stranger, is that the man’s hair remains in its altered state when he is accidentally tranquilized later, which means it can’t be chalked up to an Imagine Spot.
• Broken Aesop: The main moral of the story is that you shouldn't unfairly judge others for being ugly and that ugliness is not inherently indicative of being bad (and that beauty isn't inherently indicative of "goodness" either). However, the message falls a little short when you consider that all of the main characters, the ones who are supposed to be "ugly," are really not that ugly. In fact, they look no less adorable than Pretty Boy the koala. Despite their real-world counterparts looking anything but.
• Don't Shoot the Message: The film delivers a message of "do not judge a book by its cover" and "inner beauty". However, one criticism from some viewers says this does not work with animals who are legitimately dangerous, humans have every right to be afraid of predators and venomous animals that could harm them anytime, and the moral unfortunately comes off as "it is okay to get close to crocodiles, they just want to help". To add on, all the dangerous animals, especially the main cast, are made to be as cute as possible, which is rather unfitting for a movie with a message about not judging animals by how they look.
• Genius Bonus: Norine's backpack has the Australian Aboriginal Flag on it. So is her usage of 'deadly' - in Aboriginal English, 'deadly' means 'fantastic', 'great' or 'awesome', which is exactly what she thinks of the main characters.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Due to a lack of not only friendly snakes in media, but friendly snake protagonists and main characters in media, Maddie’s character alone is enough reason to watch the film for some people.
• One-Scene Wonder: Some of the members of the Ugly Secret Society get some pretty good lines and unique designs, but only appear briefly, and mostly in the travel montage.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Some people mistake Jacinta the shark for a guy.
• The Woobie: Maddie definitely falls under this category, especially on account of her being separated from her birth family as an egg and raised in captivity, finding out the hard way that humanity regards her and friends as monsters due to Chaz describing them as such during his shows, and being able to do nothing but watch helplessly as Jackie, the closest thing she has to a mother in her life, be taken away over an honest misunderstanding.

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