Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
A Paramount Pictures  release 

review by Staci Layne Wilson

SYNOPSIS: Mick "Crocodile" Dundee (Paul Hogan), his American girlfriend, Sue (Linda Kozlowski), and their eight year old son, Mikey (Serge Cockburn), travel to the U.S. from their tiny dustbowl town of Walkabout, where Mick heads up tours of the Outback. Sue, a former investigative journalist, has been temporarily assigned to head the Los Angeles bureau of her father's newspaper after the chief dies under suspicious circumstances. When Mick gets caught up in Sue's investigation, the stage is set for an series of situations that poke fun at the Southern California lifestyle from an outsider's point of view and solve the murder mystery at the same time.

REVIEW: Returning to the only film character that has ever given him success � Almost an Angel and Lightning Jack weren't even blips at the box office � thirteen years after the second installment of the Croc Dundee franchise, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles tries its best. And sometimes it works.

It works because Paul Hogan has such affable charisma, and because the director, Simon Wincer (Phar Lap, Lonesome Dove, Free Willy) has real talent. The characters are likable, and it's good family entertainment. The animals are wonderful and there are some laughs and chuckles to be had from the one-liners. HoweverÉ cute critters and a series of witty remarks strung together does not a movie make.

The jokes are mostly recycled from the original Crocodile Dundee "fish out of water" premise (right down to the confrontation with gang members trying to mug Mick), and the plot is beyond preposterous. There had to be a reason to get Mick to Los Angeles, but getting him into investigating a movie studio whose string of box-office stinkers just might be a cover for some illegal activity, and thus giving Mick the opportunity to go undercover, is too much to ask of any audience � even the intended kiddies are smarter than that.

There are several "guest stars" in the flick � everyone from Mike Tyson to George Hamilton � but in my view, they should have been a little less predictable and done something funny with Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. Or if he wouldn't appear in the movie, at least the writers could have worked a spoof on that theme into the plot. That would have been a lot funnier than Mick taking the Paramount Studios tour and "killing" the animatronic anaconda on the jungle tour, or the jokes about earthquakes and coffee enemas. The gags were older than George Hamilton's tan; at least The Croc Files are contemporary, and kids know who Steve Irwin is.

All of the material involving the movie-maker bad guys, portrayed by Jere Burns (you'll probably remember him from the TV series, Dear John) and Jonathan Banks (also from TV-land, as Ken Wahl's choleric boss in Wiseguy), is pathetically unfunny, and the climactic confrontation is especially weak.

All that said, I must admit Paul Hogan is still just as likable as ever, and this is a mostly entertaining little one hour and thirty five minutes. But let's hope they don't go for Crocodile Dundee 4: Mick in Las Vegas, Taxicab Confessions.

OFFICIAL WEB SITE:
http://www.crocodiledundeeinla.com/

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