Crocodile Dundee II

Crocodile Dundee II is almost as much fun the second time around. As an adventure it's nothing special, yet it's an inspired and good-humored presentation of one of the freshest, most likable screen personalities to emerge in the past decade. [25 May 1988, p.1]

Croc, as played by the sinewy and appealing Paul Hogan, may be a fish out of water, but he's a formidable comic hero, a kind of Outback James Bond only less perturbable. And this sequel is actually a better film than the original, which was one of the movies' least likely success stories in 1986. [25 May 1988, p.D1]

Crocodile Dundee II has been attractively photographed, if unremarkably directed, and it aims for affable, low-key escapism just as the first film did. But the earlier one had novelty to keep it going, and this time the novelty has begun to wear thin, even if Mr. Hogan remains generally irresistible. Read full review

It's comfortable and Disneyfied and, with shots of the splendid Australian wilderness filling the long valleys between dramatic peaks, probably the safest way to travel. Read full review

None of the energy of Mick Dundee's first foray has crept into this sequel, despite it being so close on the heels of the original. A must for lovers of the weathered outback and the even-more weathered Paul Hogan only. Read full review

A surprisingly shoddy affair that abandons the unabashed romance of its predecessor for a rudimentary action-adventure plot involving guns and drugs. Read full review

Crocodile Dundee II is a disappointing follow-up to the disarmingly charming first feature with Aussie star Paul Hogan. Sequel is too slow to constitute an adventure and has too few laughs to be a comedy. Read full review

Paul Hogan has an easy plan: Simply be Mick Crocodile Dundee and the rest will follow. The rest is Crocodile Dundee II, and it doesn't follow so much as drag itself along like an alligator on dry land. Read full review

The sequel exacerbates problems already too evident in the first movie, most painfully the near-total disposability of Kozlowski’s Sue, who spends most of the time reacting to Mick’s quirks with chuckles. No battle of wits, no rejoinders. Sue accepts Mick’s ways wholesale; there’s never any hint at a possible tension between their lifestyles. Read full review

The first Crocodile picture -- which went on to become the most profitable foreign film ever made -- wasn't great entertainment, but it was light, companionable and essentially inoffensive. Compared with the sequel, though, it looks like a masterpiece. Read full review

The saddest part of the film is that Hogan, after creating an entertaining character, chose to plug the character into a cheap formula whose hoped-for solution is, I suspect, a big chunk of the $300-million the first film was able to milk worldwide. I can see at least a few interesting movies using the Dundee character and Australia: Crocodile Dundee II is not one of them. [27 May 1988, p.6]

It is much less understandable, and not at all forgivable, that in eschewing the culture-clash comedy of the first film for generic action, the filmmakers forgot they were making a comedy at all. Read full review