This one was hot and cold for me, I was into it for most of the runtime but the last third sputtered out. It developed a lot of effective emotional tension early with the wife dying and the the kid having to forge a bond with her estranged husband, but by the end it felt like the only tension was coming from the cartoon villains chasing them around. It ended up relying a lot on charm, which it did have in spades. The kid was very likable, NZ accents are very likeable, even the cheeky references to other films got me. The other Waititi films I've seen are Thor: Ragnarok and What We Do In The Shadows, clearly he's got a knack for comedy. But I do think there was room for a bit more emotional depth in this one. One scene that stuck out to me was the funeral service - the self-insert character was funny but I couldn't help but think "damn dude, let it breath a little". Like I get the sense that Waititi's instinct here was too quick to lighten the mood when he could have been more confident in the emotional impact of the scene.
It generally hits the mark as a buddy adventure though. I am a sucker for any setting involving jungle/forest/woods. The kid is totally a natural and it's cool to see Sam Neill in something recently. I mean I'm sure he's been working but I don't remember seeing him in anything since Event Horizon which is like 25 years old now.