Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles

How long has it been since Paul Hogan's grizzled but charming alter ego appeared in a new movie? Well, long enough for the character, Crocodile Dundee, and his American companion, Sue Charleton (Hogan's real-life wife, Linda Kozlowski), to have raised a 9-year-old son, Mikey (Serge Cockburn), in the rough-and-tumble Australian outback that Dundee calls home. As with its two predecessors, however, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles is no domestic comedy but a fish-out-of-water comic adventure, this time finding Dundee and his mate Jacko (Alec Wilson) relocated in balmy Southern California to help journalist Sue investigate a crooked studio executive. The jokes are predictable (L.A. traffic, Hollywood phonies, yoga) but fun, anyway, and there are some celebrity cameos to spice things up. Australian director Simon Wincer, who worked with Hogan on Lightning Jack, is very effective at keeping this light material briskly moving along even if he can't make it any more memorable than it has a right to be. All in all, this is a pleasant but forgettable experience, a far cry from the Capra-esque leanings of Hogan's first screen outing as Crocodile Dundee. --Tom Keogh