Crocodile Dundee II

The Crocodile Who Walks Like a Man. After the coinage and all round good will generated by the first Crocodile Dundee movie, the sequel was inevitable. This time the formula is reversed as Mick Dundee (Paul Hogan) is forced to take his lady, Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski), back to the wilds of Australia in order to protect her from gangsters. There, Mick, with all his Outback skills, starts to pick the gangsters off one by one. Nah. I don't need a gun. I got a Donk! Within the plot structure there are numerous occasions for Dundee inspired jokes and scenarios, where although they are not as strong as in the first movie, they are amusing and not straining for the laugh factor. The genuine chemistry between real life couple Hogan and Kozlowski is evident and keeps the film grounded in warmth. Hogan is such a likable guy, he's a natural at playing the rugged adventurer type, and it's his charisma that rightly drives the picture forward. He throws a great punch as well, very believable. Returning characters like Wally and Donk are reassuring presences, while Charles Dutton as Leroy Brown provides solid comedy foil for Dundee during the New York part of the plot. The Northern Territory of Australia is once again the visual bonus (cinematography again by Russell Boyd), though we never really get the sweeping shots the setting deserves, and Peter Best once again provides an appropriate musical score for the two continent setting without pushing anything new on us. Problems elsewhere? There's a raft of stereotypes, particularly with the Ernie Dingo led villains, while the unoriginality of the story (a rehash of the first film) is a touch frustrating. Not exactly great and not deserving of the ill advised second sequel that followed 13 years later, part 2 of Mick and Sue's adventures is none the less still a fun way to spend an afternoon. 6.5/10

I remember enjoying the film's star Paul Hogan's commercials for 'Foster's Lager', on television back in the day, when I was growing up. His identification with Australia, and the outback, made him original and gave him worldwide fame. Though I never bothered with the much-more esteemed original, which came from nowhere and captured the imagination of filmgoers worldwide, this was charming and likeable despite its unimportance and relative inanity. The small barrel of jokes wear thin after a while, and the magic ran out as it did for the 'Romancing the Stone' sequel, 'The Jewel of the Nile', not much earlier, or more recently, the insipid retread of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'. Their decent attempt to capture lightning in a bottle unfortunately fell short. One could envision that if this couple existed in real life, their entrenched philosophical differences would mount, and they would end up breaking up after a few years, at most. This is the sort of thing that only works 'in the movies'.