Crocodile Dundee II Movie Review

As charismatic as ol' Mick Dundee was in the original Crocodile Dundee, the opposite is on display in this sequel, produced two years later. By 1988, an overexposed Paul Hogan had turned Dundee into a harsh meanie -- fishing off the coast of New York with dynamite and willing to dangle a man over the side of a building to get information out of him.

And rather than a lovey-dovey romantic comedy, Crocodile Dundee II (made, you know, back when we used Roman numerals to indicate the number of a sequel) is an action-packed movie more fit for Schwarzenegger, an attempt to clone Romancing the Stone with a less attractive blonde and a lead with an accent. This time out, our reporter Sue gets in trouble with a group of gangsters, and Mick has to save her ass -- by dragging it back to Australia, where he picks off the villains one by one by using his nutty faux-Aboriginal mojo.

Unfortunately, none of this works, though a few of the wilderness tricks are amusing. There's absolutely no charm to the film. Kozlowski is even less likable than in the original, and Hogan's stern look here is undoubtedly responsible for killing the Aussie craze soon after the movie's release. It would be 13 long years until the third installment into the series would be released -- earning a paltry one-fifth of what #2 would earn.

On the new DVD release, a pathetic five-minute behind the scenes video gives us Hogan saying he thinks Croc II could be twice as good as the original. Alas, it's not even half as enjoyable.