BUY THE DVD:
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SYNOPSIS:
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mick "crocodile" dundee, his partner, sue, and their young son, mikey, have traveled far away from their tiny australian town of walkabout to the big giant city of los angeles.
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MOVIE FACT:
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mick dundee drives a subaru outback, the same car that actor paul hogan had been the spokesman for.
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RATING:
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two out of four possible stars
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Perhaps it's because I loved the first two movies and thought that making another Crocodile Dundee was equal to making the sequel to Gone With the Wind ... wait a minute, they already did that ... Anyway, I was prepared to hate this movie. But in the end, I realized it was pretty fun and a different, though not worthy follow-up to the first two films. It's not a movie that should be taken seriously. It's just an average comedy. Probably the most major difference between this picture and the first too is the lack of crude humor in this one. Sure, there's the odd sexually tinted phrase, but for the most part, this film earns its PG rating.
And forgive me if it seems like I crave violence, but I think the film is poorer because of it. That raw humor and "Outback" aspect is missing that Paul Hogan seethed in the other two movies. This film is aimed at a younger audience as well, extending from hogan's desire to create a film that his kids could go and see. And although he still plays the smart but innocent bushman, out of his element in the big city, his character seems to have changed a bit during the intervening years. And perhaps this is a natural progression for a father with a ten year old boy, but I kinda miss the crass old Mick Dundee.
It was nice though to see some of the old cast back for this sequel, if only for a few scenes. Most of the people who populated the bar in "walkabout creek" were present in a few of the scenes and the guy who played one of Mick's enemies in the second film, but was his best friend in this film, was a good addition to the cast. Since not much of the film takes place in Australia, it was good to get at least a few Australians in Los Angeles. That aspect is something else that I think this film lacked was the time it spent in australia and that country's influence on the plot. It seemed as though most of the film was about Mick and how he fumbled through Los Angeles.
And though LA is in the title, I still missed the outback. I felt it should have been there for more time than just as a warm-up for the film. Crocodile Dundee is from Australia and in the first two movies, that country was integral to the plot. In this film, Mick didn't seem to have so much loyalty to Australia. Something else that kind of irked me about this film was the lack of attention played to a decent script. I wasn't looking for Faulkner, but I think the characters and the actors deserved a bit more to work with. The story was decent, and the characters were all amusing, but most of the time, the script was so full of exposition that I found it hard to just sit back and enjoy the movie.
There was too much of the "here we are in Los Angles" technique. Now, what does that mean? Well, it's stating things verbally in a story instead of showing them to the audience. Like when the bad guys say (just for example) "it's a good thing he didn't find the plutonium! Our plan would have been ruined!" That's something you'd see at the end of a scooby doo episode. and this film was pretty much full of it. in just about every scene, the characters were talking about what they were doing. Nothing was ever gained form bad writing. Even great actors can't turn a bad script into something worth watching.
Well, except for Paul Hogan. Dundee is a great character and Hogan brings that character to the screen very well. The first picture was so successful not because of the glowing script, but because Hogan plays a great character. And everything about this film isn't worth complaining about. I'd like to comment the casting directors on their choice for the kid role of Dundee's child, played by Serge Cockburn. The chemistry between the kid and Paul Hogan was pretty realistic and the kid had a good sense of comic timing. Some of the best stuff in the film was with the kid. The jokes were funnier when the kid was on the screen and he worked well opposite Hogan.
Another great element to the script was a short bit involving an Aboriginal man at the beginning of the film when Dundee is still in Australia. If anything in this film is worth watching, it's getting to see a man in a loin-cloth take a ringing cell-phone out of a pocket (that's somewhere in the loin-cloth) and start talking on it. A very funny piece of the film. Too bad it's only in about two minutes of the film. Perhaps the only person whose performance wasn't able to overcome the crappy dialogue was Linda Kozlowski. She never was that spectacular on the screen and she didn't look at home in front of the camera. Her lame lines seemed to be read off of a piece of nearby paper.
Perhaps that was because her dialogue was the most laden with exposition. Maybe I shouldn't be blaming the actors though. They were really given a poorly written script. Maybe the filmmakers decided that the character of Mick Dundee was enough to sustain the film and the script was a purely secondary feature. And since there was a lack of romping around the Australian outback, the film seemed kind of empty. But, like I said before, to take this film too seriously would be a mistake. There's not too much going on, brain wise, and the characters are pretty likeable.
The bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. The same kind of feeling you'd get after watching an old Western from the fifties. The humor is enjoyable and Paul Hogan knows how to make his character a fun sight. The real bad guys in this film are the screenwriters. They took a great character and an always enjoyable story and gave it a sub-standard script. Shame on them. And looking at the writing duo's history, it's clear that neither writer has created anything of merit as of yet.
Review by Kelsey Wyatt.
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