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I was miffed to discover my two most anticipated films of the summer came out
while I was in Thailand. I knew, deep down, that Crocodile Dundee 3 was going to be
shite but being a big fan of the first two movies I thought I'd find something of amusement even if nobody else did.
Planet of the Apes meanwhile couldn't be - based on the avalanche of hype and the film's cast & crew
credentials - anything other than exquisite (although Tim Burton's excuses were beginning to leak through
the shitstorm of publicity).
What a summer! TIM BURTON and PAUL HOGAN!
On returning from Thailand, I made a beeline to catch both films, shelling out £10 for
what turned out to be two classy examples of how Hollywood has managed to kill modern cinema.
The delayed regurgitation of Hogan's big hits (Crocodile Dundee 1 & 2 grossed over $600m between them)
was an obvious cash in at the tail end of a career that began with the Paul Hogan Show & the first Crocodile
Dundee but drifted into insignificance with a handful of films whose names I don't even recall suffice to
say one starred Cuba Gooding Jr as a deaf mute. Hogan's success was a strictly eighties phenomena, back when
Fosters tasted like shit and all Australians were weirdo's wearing cork hats and eye-wateringly short shorts.
Where Mel Gibson
and INXS played down their Aussie roots Hogan used them to launch his career. His TV show was filled
with the self-mocking vitality of TV golden age of comedy (1980's) and fed on the 'other' genre of
xenphobia and racism that constituted the majority of laughs at that time. Crocodile Dundee merely took this
equation international and milked it for all it was worth. The second film faired less
well as the producers put an action-hero twist on what was essentially the same formula as the
original. Well played and perhaps more humourous than the original, the film performed adequately
and after the hysteria died down Hogan moved onto fresh pastures without little success after forsaking
the one-trick pony formula that made him a star.
So what we get with Croc 3 is an outdated formula played by a washed up cast. Hogan looks OLD.
Very old. Even by HW standards. It becomes very obvious very quickly this is a pension topping-up
exercise for the Hogans. Wife Linda Kozlowski barely holds the love interest (and her lines) while
Dundee, Jr. only serves to highlight & subsequently neutralize the immaturity & ignorance of Dundee, Sr
(which was where the humour lay). The fish out of water contrast doesn't hold any water and the comic
set pieces about talking drive-thru's & theme park rides are outdated, exhausted & go on too long.
There isn't really a plot to speak of, or any funny jokes for that matter, and you end up feeling
Hogan should be sitting down infront of a TV with a blanket on his lap dropping pills with a nurse
at his side.
I did laugh once or twice - out of sympathy or allegiance I'm not sure which - but the film is
disappointingly superfluous.
Planet of the Apes on the other hand, looked fantastic from the storm of publicity and
rhetoric preceeding its release.
I spent 5 weeks in Thailand missing it all over Bangkok and Ko Samui until I
eventually caught the last 20 minutes in a bar on the Khao San Road. What a disappointment.
And what a terrible ending. From my 20 min excerpt I assertained the script was wank, Walhberg was
terrible and the whole pantomime seemed to accelerate
to consciousness-losing speed to accomodate a tacked on resolution that mocked the greatness of the
original (perhaps the greatest ending ever...?) that would make even Roger Corman cringe.
On returning to Little America, I went to see the whole thing, hoping it was the usual case of
starting well, faltering midway and falling flat on its face by the end - a mark of modern cinema as
the suits upstairs declare themselves cinephiles, change scripts, cut budgets and generally hinder
the filmmakers until the whole production is thrown off the rails. No suck luck. Gone were all the
racial connotations that endeared the original series with it's critical and
cult success, replaced by some vague utopian space future, 2001-esque in its Brechtian sterility.
In the age of HW PC, we are treated to a cotton-wool clone of the Charlton Heston race epic. And with
black and white as the defining theme of the original its incredulous how the producers thought
they'd get away with it's omittance.
Burton's update is the complete antithesis of the original: big budget, mainstream, the best SFX & make-up
(ie. Stan Winston), a virile cast, great director...all wasted. What is left is the skin and bones of
a poor sci-fi adventure that despite it's magnitude of production is nothing more than a bad B-movie.
It just goes to show (& HW please take note:) you CANNOT remake a cult film. Full stop.
I s'pose we should commend Burton the artist on the mise en scene (sets, costumes, make-up all outstanding)
yet Burton the director's output has continued to flag since Ed Wood. Mars Attacks! & Sleepy Hollow crumble
in comparison to the great wit and tenacity of Pee Wee's Big Adventure & Beetlejuice. You feel Batman syndrome
(look at Keaton, Kilmer, Schumacher, Schwarzenegger & Carey since...) has left Burton flailing between
the demand for personal expression (the sublime Nightmare Before Xmas) & the lure of big money (the substandard
Planet of the Apes). Let's
hope he can iron out the contradictions and doesn't become another John Carpenter and that Apes was
was merely a wagepacket on the path to a less restrained, more personal vision where Burton the creator
obviously shines.
The verdict? Not even Estella Warren's voluptuous breasts can save this one (although you just know the
producers contemplated it).
RATING:
(c)Limer 2001
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Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles/Planet of the Apes (Cinema: August 2001)
