“˜Crocodile’ lacks adequate plot

  Paramount Pictures Serge Cockburn (left)
and Paul Hogan star as Mikey and Mick Dundee,
respectively, in "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles."

By David Holmberg
Daily Bruin Staff

Congratulations to “Crocodile Dundee In Los
Angeles,” for finally and undeniably proving that L.A. is a
completely uninteresting city and that sequels are inevitably bad.
Indeed, everyone involved, from screenwriters to actors, should be
given a hearty pat on the back for making it blatantly clear how
limited the imagination can be when filming a sequel.

The film, directed by Simon Wincer, begins in Walkabout Creek, a
nowhere town in the Australian Outback, with Paul Hogan reprising
his role as Mick Dundee, crocodile hunter. Together with his
girlfriend Sue Charlton, played by real life wife Linda Kozlowski,
they run a tourist center.

Mick and Sue have also fostered a mini-Croc hunter, Mikey (Serge
Cockburn). They teach him political correctness and that killing
animals is wrong. But for reasons never given, the couple is not
technically married yet (hint, hint).

It is time for Hogan to face the facts: he is not a crocodile
hunter. At 60 years old, he is now more believable selling Subaru
Outbacks on commercials than he is wrestling crocodiles in the
jungle. Hogan seems to have comfortably settled into a career of
parodying himself, but this movie is a painful attempt to
revitalize a now stiff concept.

Hogan even delivers a line early on about how he does not kill
crocodiles anymore, because without them he would have no job. How
true. And with Steve Irwin actually doing all of those things Hogan
just pretends to, this reality is all too apparent.

Seeing as how Mick is still in the rural Outback at the outset,
there must, of course, be some contrived concept to get this fish
out of water. Just as in the last two films, wife Sue comes to the
rescue. What! Someone in her father’s L.A. based newspaper
has died suddenly? You mean she will have to go to the United
States to help out for a while? If that wasn’t an easy enough
way of getting the old gang state side, and no one raises the
slightest objection. So off they venture, with fun sure to
follow.

With an introduction to Los Angeles that seems unsettlingly
reminiscent of the opening credits of “Miami Vice”
(with no flamingos), the group arrives in Beverly Hills. The trio
splits off into their respective tasks, with Sue going to work at
the paper, Mikey going to school and old Mick just hanging out.

Sue quickly learns that the man who formerly held her job died
while looking into some suspicious work being done by a local film
studio. So Mick soon sets to work with some undercover detective
investigation at the studio, and boy does he have adventures.

At the studio, Mick runs into uninteresting stereotypical
eastern european villains. It is not even worth describing their
vapidity, although at least they are not dramatically stupid. Their
plan is reasonable, if mundane, but hardly provides a serious
threat. In previous movies, the entire city of New York had been
against Mick, then an evil drug dealer, so these pathetic wastes of
time are useful only as a limited source of action.

The film barely moves, and instead sort of ambles aimlessly from
one inane contrived situation to the next. Mick and Mikey run into
crazy antics as they experience the wild and wacky world of L.A.
culture. In a head-scratching cameo by Mike Tyson, the three have
some entertainment with their similar names, and then, well,
nothing happens, which is no real surprise.

However, Hogan’s character does not deserve all the blame
for this irrelevant film. In the past films, the Outback was a
major setting, as was New York. Australia at that time still seemed
foreign and mysterious, while New York was a larger than life
representation of the American city. Both of these locations have a
lot of personality, and are definitive depictions of rural and
urban life, yet they are at opposite ends of the cultural
spectrum.

Los Angeles, though, is not even on the same chart. Things here
do not really make sense, by anyone’s standards. It would
have been just as meaningless to set the film in Las Vegas, where,
while certainly defining American culture, no one has a clue what
it all means.

Plus, as the film effectively shows, Angelenos care about
nothing except superficial qualities. However true it may be that
everyone in L.A. wants to be rich and famous, that does not make
for an interesting setting. Even personally knowing the city fails
to prevent utter boredom.

The Outback also seems affected by modernity, as even the
Aborigines have cell phones. As comical as this may be, it also
inadvertently demonstrates how unnecessary this sequel was. There
is no longer a cultural gap for Mick to try and scramble across.
The world is melding into one big homogenous blob, destroying every
culture in its path.

Ultimately, the film is not funny because the strange things the
people of Los Angeles do are not comical, but pathetic. There seems
to be no reason to justify why this film was made, especially given
that 13 years have elapsed since “Crocodile Dundee:
II.”

The one answer it inarguably provides is that there is
absolutely no reason to ever force Hogan and gang to dawn their
tired characters again, for this must be the last of a long dead
series.

FILM: “Crocodile Dundee in Los
Angeles” is now playing in theaters nationwide.