Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Featurette-Behind The Scenes Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	90:41 (Case: 92)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (62:25)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Simon Wincer
Studio Distributor	Silver Lion Films Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Paul Hogan Linda Kozlowski Jere Burns Jonathan Banks Aida Turturro Paul Rodriguez
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Basil Poledouris

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles was (seemingly) only released a couple of months ago as a rental disc, but it has now been released as an almost equally bare-bones sell-through product. I will be repeating my plot synopsis verbatim from the review of that product, and if truth be told, I don't see that big a difference between the two versions of this disc.

    I still recollect when my parents and I took the time to catch Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles at the then recently-erected Merrylands cinema complex. The critical reception for the film in America had not been encouraging, but I was willing to give it a go, and suffice it to say that I am not the only one who felt that it was the best episode in the franchise. The reasons for this are somewhat complex, but bear with me and I will explain a little bit about why we should be glad that this is the first Crocodile Dundee film to arrive on our beloved format.

    I always felt that Crocodile Dundee, episodes one and two, were made with an American audience in mind, which is fair enough considering that's where the money in this industry lies, but the dumbed-down nature of the character was enough to make a lot of people wonder if this was what Paul Hogan really thought of Australians. In this latest episode, the character and the writing take a more intelligent approach, with Mick Dundee even taking the time to exploit American ignorance of what the Australian lifestyle really entails. You can see an example of this at 41:47, where Mick uses leg-pulling and humour to wake two fathers at an American primary school up to the difference between camp-outs and real outback living. A hilarious cameo role from Mike Tyson as himself at 44:05 also keeps Mick Dundee showing that he is not immune from growing old, as well as keeping the fish out of water humour in its rightful balance.

    The basic story begins with Mick Dundee (Paul Hogan) continuing to make a living as a crocodile wrangler and tour guide in Walkabout Creek, ably assisted by fellow locals such as Nugget O'Cass (Gerry Skilton), Jacko (Alec Wilson), and our ever-loveable favourite, Donk (Steve Rackman). Although Mick and Sue Charleton (Linda Kozlowski) have yet to marry, they have a young son by the name of Mikey (Serge Cockburn), who behaves very much like a fusion of the best elements between the two. That evening, however, Sue receives a call from her father, and learns that the previous editor of one of the newspapers in her family's control has died in a car accident. She is asked to fill in until a permanent replacement can be found, and soon she sets off for Los Angeles with Mick and Mikey in tow. After some of the humorous shenanigans that drowned the plot in the first two films, we get onto the story proper, where Sue discovers that the editor in question was working on a feature about a movie studio that is producing multi-million dollar turkeys and somehow managing to stay afloat.

    Of course, the next thing we see is various aspects of the lives of Mick and Mikey, with Mikey going to one of the local schools and mixing it up with the locals, especially his teacher who goes by the name of Mathis (Kaitlin Hopkins). Eventually, Mick takes a job at the film studio in order to see what he can dig up for Sue, so Jacko comes to help out in handling various domestic tasks. Meanwhile, we soon find that the studio heads, Arnan Rothman (Jere Burns) and Milos Drubnick (Jonathan Banks) are up to something very suspicious, but Mick just cannot put his finger on it as yet. For a long time in this film, you'll be asking how a film company could spend so much cash shooting both in Hollywood and what is left of Yugoslavia, only to produce films that consistently flop at the box office.

    I cannot stress enough how much better Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles is in comparison to its predecessors: the humour is far more intelligent, and yet the film doesn't take itself too seriously. In fact, as one astute IMDB user pointed out, if you take this film seriously you are missing the whole point. This is rather ironic, because of the three films in this series, it is the easiest one to take seriously, with even the "that's not a knife" scene in the first film being thoroughly trumped here. I guess the magic ingredient is that Paul Hogan wasn't taking anything half as seriously as is the norm in the American film industry lately, because this is one of the most enjoyable films I have seen in the last eighteen months. If Leo W***er meets Mad Max sounds like something you'd enjoy watching, then don't hesitate to have a look-see at this disc.

Video

    Now, where is my review of the rental version? I think I can pretty much copy this section verbatim from it, because the only difference with this sell-through disc is RSDL formatting.

    Again, the transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and it is 16x9 Enhanced. While I still feel that there are some shots which could have been more tightly composed, the ratio is used to full effect most of the time here, and the Behind The Scenes featurette reveals that the film was actually shot in Panavision.

    The transfer is razor-sharp, with the highest level of clarity one can reasonably expect from any standard definition format, DVD-Video included. It is rather interesting to note that, like a lot of recent films, all of the television sets shown in Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles are 16:9-shaped, and I suspect that the mock television announcements were actually shot on film or with a HDTV unit. The shadow detail of this transfer is excellent, as one would hope for when night-time sequences occur in a place like Los Angeles, although dark scenes are quite infrequent here. There is no low-level noise to ruin the purity of this picture.

    The colour schemes in this picture range from an emphasis on earthy, dull tones during the sequences in Australia, to a sort of steely, artificial scheme when the action moves to Los Angeles. Both schemes are represented with such fidelity to the theatrical exhibition that, resolution differences aside, I find it difficult to tell the difference between the two. No composite artefacts or colour bleeding were noted.

    MPEG artefacts were not found in this transfer. The only flaws in this transfer were the presence of minor film-to-video artefacts in the form of aliasing, and a few more film artefacts than I would normally expect for a film of this relative youth. The aliasing occurred on such things as a limousine at 18:17, the neck of a lamp at 36:22, and the grille of a school bus at 40:57. The aforementioned film artefacts were mild in size and generally infrequent, so they can be overlooked.

    The English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles on this disc are mostly accurate to the spoken dialogue, but there are some occasional clangers that almost but not quite turn the whole context of a line on its ear.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change taking place between Chapters 10 and 11, at 62:25. This is just after Paul Hogan says "trust me", and it is as good a place as any in this film for a pause.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only the one soundtrack included on this disc, which happens to be the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 5.1 with the higher bitrate of 448 kilobits per second.

    The dialogue is mostly clear and easy to understand, with most of the principal cast being quite clear and easy to make out. The exception to this is Jonathan Banks, whose fake Yugoslavian accent does get in the way of intelligibility at times. Most of what he is saying can be easily derived from the context, so this is not as troublesome as it probably sounds. There were no discernable problems with audio sync.

    The score music in this film is the work of Basil Poledouris, and this is a rather unusual entry in his career when you consider his previous works include the likes of Starship Troopers and Conan The Barbarian. It literally rides roughshod over the scores by Peter Best in the previous two episodes simply because it has a setting other than "less subtle than a nuclear strike on the outback". Basil's score in this episode varies between a rustic, romantic feel, and a subdued, even dark sort of feel, with a lot of subtle shades in between to make sure you never get bored. In another contrast to the previous two films, a large number of contemporary songs are used, but these are mostly unobtrusive and merely used to augment the feel of a particular scene.

    The surround channels are almost constantly active to support the sounds of passing cars, bird calls, music, and numerous other subtle sounds that, while never approaching the rampant attack of an action film's surround field, draw the viewer into the film with subtlety. During the crocodile wrangling sequence early on in the film, the surround channel usage creates a feeling like one is actually sitting on a log watching Paul Hogan and Alec Wilson at work. During the meditation sequence with Mike Tyson, at 45:07 to be more exact, you can hear the disembodied voice of Tyson floating around the surround field in a nice, pleasant way that creates the illusion that you're sitting and meditating with the three actors in this scene.

    The subwoofer was used to support such sounds as crocodiles eating boats, cars coming to a sudden stop, or the music, and it supported all of these effects without drawing attention to itself. While it is not as creatively used as is the case with the surround channels, it contributes to the immersive experience of the soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Considering that this is an RSDL disc and that Crocodile Dundee has a strong following in Australia, the collection of extras we have here is just a little on the disappointing side.

Menu

    The menu is static, based around a similar collection of stills as was the case on the rental version, and it is 16x9 Enhanced.

Theatrical Trailer

    Presented in an approximate 1.85:1 ratio with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, this two minute and thirteen second trailer is not 16x9 Enhanced.

Featurette - Behind The Scenes

   This is an eighteen minute and five second collection of footage shot by what appears to be a second camera on the sets, without any annotation or narration. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

    The Region 4 and Region 1 versions of this disc appear to be pretty similarly specified, although Amazon's description of the Region 1 disc describes cast and crew interviews as being present. Assuming this is true for a moment, such interviews would be vastly preferable to the boring Behind The Scenes featurette that is included on the local disc. Ultimately, however, there is little to recommend one version over the other.

    Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles is a film that doesn't take itself seriously, and is rollicking good fun for about ninety minutes.

    The video transfer is excellent, with only minor flaws denying it reference status.

    The audio transfer is of reference quality.

    The extras are rather sparse.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall