Product: Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 4.0
One of Hollywood�s more family friendly comedies �but flawed
The return of Crocodile Dundee for a third movie was greeted with a great deal of applause: hooray for a good old fashioned family friendly comedy. But is it?Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles features the return of Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee, once again starring in his humorous fish-out-of-the-water role. This time Dundee travels with his common-law-wife and son to Los Angeles, where he helps her uncover a smuggling ring. The action sequences and climax at the end all have their humour, but the real fun occurs throughout the movie, with Dundee the nave Australian in the big American city. Most of the humour revolves around cultural differences and pokes fun at American culture and America's own holy grails: the fast food industry, the movie business. Some of the highlights that come to mind are a scene where Dundee chokes up the expressway while trying to rescue a skunk, the drive-through at Wendys, and the drive-by mugging which backfired. Added to the cultural jokes are slap stick humor typical of a comedy where the villains are treated to a variety of appropriate punishments. And the scenes of Australia (with a local aborigine using a mobile phone) are equally charming. All family friendly so far, although the amount of violence and the tense chase scene involving gun-toting thugs and hungry lions at the end would be frightening for youngsters.Somewhat more disturbing, however, are the oblique and more incidental aspects of the movie. There are several foul mouthed expressions, and around half a dozen instances of blasphemy. Is this really necessary? Apparently so. But that's not the worst of it. The movie is filled with sexual innuendoes, with numerous ogling of rear ends and comments like "nice butt", and scantily clad babes are abundant - there's a hardly a modestly dressed female to be seen. The abundant cleavage and short skirts and provocative comments does little to discourage lustful thoughts. And Mick & Sue's eventual marriage merely serves to make their earlier common-law relationship "official." But to top it off, there are several jokes about homosexuality, including a scene where Dundee and his companion enter a gay cross-dressing bar. Producers, it seems, are determined to include references to homosexuality, in order to make us desensitized to an immoral lifestyle. They are already succeeding, as evidenced in the fact that many speak of this movie as "family friendly all the way." Be warned that it's not "all the way" family friendly, because although this is a PG movie, by introducing your children to Crocodile Dundee you are introducing them to profanity and immorality in abundance. Even the fact that Dundee takes the law into his own hands by breaking and entering in order nab the villains does little to encourage respect for authority. Mick Dundee may a better hero than most of Hollywood's offerings, but even he lacks some of the old fashioned morals that America once had.The standards are indeed slipping. By society's standards, it is a relatively clean movie. But the standards of today are already so low, that even the cleanest of movies has a great deal of filth lurking underneath. The waters of Crocodile Dundee may have been declared clean by many, but beware that the crocodiles of immorality are lurking close at hand, ready to nibble away whatever morals your children may have left.