This corny comedy takes as a given that everything its leathery leading man does is both charming and amusing—be it stopping freeway traffic to rescue a skunk or chugging a can of Foster's in the bathtub. It ain't necessarily so.
In his third crack at playing reptile hunter Mick "Crocodile" Dundee, Hogan revisits the outdoorsman-in-the-city formula that proved such a fire starter at the box office in the latter 1980s. Time, though, has passed our hero by, both in the story itself (it's now illegal for him to kill crocs) and as a laugh-getter. When we first see Hogan in Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, he has little more to do than pose manfully for tourists in the Australian Outback. In a reverse Survivor move, he happily relocates from the bush to hazard-strewn L.A. when his retired reporter girlfriend (Kozlowski, a blonde blank) trades housekeeping for a temporary assignment there. While Dundee is touring the town with their 9-year-old son, she is digging up dirt on a suspicious movie company. Soon Dundee joins the investigation and, working as an extra, uncovers nefarious goings-on.
Lethargically directed by fellow Aussie Simon Wincer (reteaming with Hogan after 1994's Lightning Jack), the movie has a leisurely pace and predictable plot. Bits from earlier Crocodiles are recycled, including Dundee showing muggers who's boss ("No wonder they call it the city on wheels," he says after being accosted by thieves, "they don't even get out of their car to mug you"). Even that which is new feels familiar, as when Dundee is befuddled by the whirlpool features of a fancy bathtub, a scene harking back to the first Crocodile's spouting bidet.
Hogan ambles through all this with pleasant good humor. As Paul Rodriguez, playing a fellow extra, aptly puts it, "He's a hell of a nice guy. Can't act for s—, but he's probably going to end up with his own sitcom." (PG)
Bottom Line: Blunder from Down Under
Peter Mullan, Wes Bentley
California, here they come. It's 1867 and the aftereffects of the Gold Rush of '49 are still being played out in the frontier mining town of Kingdom Come. Arriving in town one snowy day, an ailing, once-beautiful mother (Nastassja Kinski) tells her daughter (Sarah Polley) to call on the town's leading citizen (Mullan), a wealthy businessman. He, it seems, owes both women a debt, the nature and magnitude of which will have devastating consequences for all of The Claim's major characters.
Inspired by The Mayor of Caster-bridge, Thomas Hardy's 1886 moraltale, Claim is too diffuse in both plotting and characterization to work successfully as a movie. It is, however, beautifully shot, and Mullan's acting is moving. (R)
Bottom Line: Doesn't pan out
John Turturro, Emily Watson
The game of love is far more complicated than the game of chess, as Alexander Luzhin (Turturro) learns the hard way in this handsome romantic drama. Set at a lakeside Italian resort in the 1920s, The Luzhin Defence, adapted from an early Nabokov novel, chronicles the troubled affair between Luzhin, a chess grand master who has spent his life avoiding emotional entanglements, and the sleek Natalia, an aristocratic rebel who defies her bossy mother when she sets out to castle Luzhin.
Gifted stars Turturro (intense here even by his own tightly wound standards) and Watson (who seems to glow from within) are well-matched, but the film, directed by Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line), is minor. (PG-13)
Bottom Line: Call it a draw
Antonio Banderas, Olivia Williams, Derek Jacobi
The movie company responsible for this howler, in which an archeologist uncovers what could be the remains of Jesus Christ in a tomb in present-day-Jerusalem, at least had the decency to release it after Easter and Passover. Be thankful for small blessings.
After an Israeli archeologist (Williams) finds the potentially divine remains, she shares her findings with a local monk (Jacobi) who passes the word to the Vatican. Rome, in turn, dispatches a military intelligence officer-turned-priest (Banderas), ordering him to put the kibosh on any speculation. As Jacobi's monk explains helpfully, for all of us who didn't pay sufficient attention in Bible class, "An unrisen Christ would mean the end of Christianity." Soon the Israeli military and Palestinian terrorists are snooping around as well.
The dialogue is clunky, the plotting contrived, and the acting ranges from sullenly wooden (Banderas) to feyly eccentric (Jacobi and, especially, Jason Flemyng as a flittish priest). Body marks the inauspicious directorial debut of Jonas McCord, who previously made documentaries. (PG-13)
Bottom Line: An unholy mess
>Along Came a Spider The always-watchable Morgan Freeman, again playing Del Alex Cross (from Kiss the Girls), must find a kidnapped child in this perfunctory thriller. (R)
Blow Like cocaine, this ambitious epic about the rise and fall of a drug dealer is fun at first but ultimately unsatisfying. (R)
Bridget Jones's Diary Pure fun. Poor Ms. Jones (Renée Zellweger) must decide between Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in a smart, sassy romantic comedy. (R)
Josie and the Pussycats Busy but lifeless teen movie about an all-girl band, based on the old TV cartoon. (PG-13)
Memento A must-see. Intriguing thriller in which the plot runs backward and the hero (Guy Pearce) has short-term memory loss. (R)
Spy Kids James Bond, watch your back. Two kids must rescue their ex-spy parents. (PG)
The Tailor of Panama Smart, character-driven thriller based on a John le Carré novel has nifty turns by Geoffrey Rush and Pierce Brosnan. (R)
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
