CROCODILE DUNDEE IN LOS ANGELES

Tom Meek

It's been a few years since the original Crocodile Dundee (1986) and its tepid sequel (1988), but here, in the series's third installment (directed by Simon Wincer, of Free Willy fame), Paul Hogan's Mick, his long-time girlfriend (Linda Kozlowski) and their 11-year-old son (an ill-used Serge Cockburn) venture from the Outback to the hills of Hollywood, where Linda fills in at her dad's paper after a senior editor dies under suspicious circumstances. Mick bides his time in the urban jungle, snarling freeway traffic to save a skunk, showing a studio tour what a "real knife" is, and taking a job as a bit actor to solve the big murder mystery -- which is idiocy at its finest.

It's cute to see Mick still confounded by the amenities of high technology, but the comic charm that made the first Dundee entertaining has vanished from this limp romp. The high points? George Hamilton ranting about coffee enemas and Mike Tyson waxing philosophically about that "special place he goes to in his mind." Let's hope that's not the place Croc will be visiting in the next installment.