Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles [2001]

Adventure, Comedy

Director

Simon Wincer

Made 13 years after the previous sequel, 2001's Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles sees Paul Hogan's likeable, heroic and unworldly Aussie hero accompany his partner Sue (Linda Kozlowski, Hogan's real-life wife) to Los Angeles. There he finds himself wrestling with the niceties of the Californian lifestyle somewhat less easily than he wrestles with crocs back in the outback. Sue, meanwhile, uncovers a smuggling plot involving artworks from Yugoslavia. Dundee duly steps forward to go undercover and--with a bit of muscle and survivalist nous--saves the day.

As anyone who saw Escape from LA will testify, the moral here is: never make a sequel in Los Angeles. The kindest thing that can be said about this outing is that it is harmless. It exudes a family-friendly geniality throughout that almost makes its many flaws endurable--almost but not quite. Hogan--61 when he made this--makes for an embarrassingly implausible action hero, lacquered in trowel-loads of make-up to fill in the facial creases. The antipodean-abroad jokes are insultingly feeble; Dundee strolls into a gay bar by mistake, thinks the parking valet is a mugger, can't operate the remote control, etc. There's a cameo involving Mike Tyson that belongs nowhere and Kozlowski's performance only fuels suspicion that this is a husband and wife vanity project. If nothing else, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles is proof that Hollywood's alleged stony-heartedness is a myth, for it can only have been out of charity and benevolence to an elderly Australian thespian down on his luck that this movie was given the green light.

On the DVD: Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles is presented in anamorphic widescreen format with excellent image quality, bringing out the rich contrasts between the early outback scenes and the early establishing shots of sunlit LA. Sound quality is impeccable also. The only extras, however, are the trailer and some "behind the scenes" clips so perfunctory and unrevealing they might as well not have bothered. --David Stubbs