Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (Rental) (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	90:41 (Case: 92)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	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 Alec Wilson Serge Cockburn
Case	?
RPI	Rental	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	Smoking	Yes, occasionally
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    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

    Another good reason to take a look at this disc is to see an example of how wonderful it can look when the video mastering is done correctly. The quality of this video transfer is such that I preferred it to the theatrical exhibition, which is saying quite a lot.

    The transfer is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and it is 16x9 Enhanced. Most of the cinematography is very well done, but there is one shot at 84:17 where it looks as if the scene was shot from too far away.

    The sharpness of this transfer is excellent, with plenty of fine detail on offer for all the detail junkies out there. Most of this film contains greenery of one kind or another, and the subtle detail that is offered in all of the shots will make any viewer pleased that they invested in the format. The shadow detail is good, but not what I would call great; there are not too many scenes in this film that really need it, and those that do only really need it in the background anyway. There was no low-level noise to spoil this transfer.

    The colours in this transfer are vibrant and richly saturated, as is to be expected from a Crocodile Dundee film, with the Australian locations emphasising the brown, earthy hues while the Los Angeles locations have a more cold, blue colour scheme. This is one film you do not want to watch through a composite video connector, because it is simply a travesty to reduce the fidelity of colour that far. There were no problems whatsoever with bleeding, misregistration, or composite artefacts.

    MPEG artefacts were not found in this transfer, with the image having a smooth and natural look that will make you wonder how they manage to do that with a lossy compression algorithm. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some mild to moderate aliasing, with fine lines in Australia such as the row boat that Alec Wilson uses showing a trace of aliasing in the rim around the seat. Blinds and car grilles were the main culprits in the Los Angeles scenes, and the most obvious example of aliasing can be found on the front of a bus at 54:50. Film artefacts came in short but plentiful bursts early on in the film, but they settled down to a more acceptable level about fifteen minutes into the feature. Aside from these rather minor complaints, however, this is one of the smoothest and most natural-looking examples of a film-to-video transfer you're likely to see until a consumer High-Definition format becomes available.

    The English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles vary somewhat from the actual spoken dialogue, with at least one or two noticeable variations, but aside from a couple of examples that made me scratch my head, they are more than serviceable.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Accompanying a smooth, natural looking video transfer is another audio transfer that proves your film doesn't need to be all about action in order to make full use of the Dolby Digital 5.1 specification.

    There is one soundtrack included on this disc: the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 5.1 with the higher bitrate of 448 kilobits per second, and every one of those bits are used to the fullest.

    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

    Well, this is a rental version, which means no extras. Some extras I would like to see on the eventual sell-through version would include an audio commentary by Paul Hogan, an isolated score, and a collection of the trailers that were used to promote the film. I'm sure readers out there will agree that this is not too much to ask.

Menu

    The menu is static and 16x9 Enhanced. Navigating this menu is very easy since there are very few options.

    This disc is already available on sell-through in Region 1, as are the two previous episodes (makes you spit, doesn't it?), but reliable sites such as Widescreen Review seem reluctant to provide any definitive information about it. From what I can gather, however, we miss out on;

• One or more theatrical trailers
• Cast and crew interviews

    These two extras are hardly what I would call a compelling argument in favour of the Region 1 disc, but if you want to own the film now, then by all means go ahead and import these discs, but with the value of the Australian Peso varying up and down a lot, patience can be a virtue.

    Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles takes a franchise that many dismissed as being old and tired, and breathes new life into the whole light comedy genre by giving it some depth and good humour at the same time. I thoroughly recommend it.

    The video transfer is excellent.

    The audio transfer is excellent.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall