My Review of 'Crocodile Dundee'

I haven't seen Crocodile Dundee since I was a little kid. This movie first came out in 1986 and in a lot of ways it definitely shows. There are certain scenes that would not pass through if they were to be made today. On the other hand there is also an innocence to this movie that you can't deny. I was enamored by this movie when I was a little kid so I was excited to see how I would react to this movie today.

This movie is a basic fish out of water story line. There's a journalist by the name of Sue Charlton, played by Linda Kozlowski, she wants write a news article on a mythical character in Australia who survived a horrific crocodile attack. Apparently, a crocodile had bit off his leg and somehow he not only escaped but killed the crocodile in the process.

I was kind of dumbfounded that there was that much money in the newspaper industry back in the 80's but this again could have just been for the story. I'll have to do some research about this afterwards because I'm pretty curious. Since there was no internet back then, newspapers could very well have been that lucrative.

Anyways, she goes off to Australia to find Crocodile Dundee, played by Paul Hogan (who incidentally came up with the story and screenplay). We soon find out that some of the tall tales about Crocodile Dundee are purely fictional but some of them are pretty real. I guess this is a lesson that you can't really believe everything you hear.

During Sue's adventures in the outback of Australia she discovers that it's fairly rough in Australia but not everything is that bad. There are talks about how to aborigines live and their philosophies that I don't know are true or not. It was a nice touch that they added something about the aborigines in the movie though.

Throughout Sue's adventures in Australia, she and Crocodile Dundee build a relationship that is kind of undefined. She convinces Crocodile Dundee to come to New York to see what it's like over there. He's enamored by her so he agrees to follow her.

When they get back to New York, Sue makes it apparent that she's already got a boyfriend and so things get a little interesting because of this. To add to the mix Crocodile Dundee has never left Australia before. You have yourself a story of misunderstandings and cultural exchanges.

Like I said before there are a few scenes in this movie that will definitely not pass if watched by today's generation of kids. The thing is, they play Crocodile Dundee off like a kid. He sort of gets away with some of the things that he does because of his innocence to the situations. He's noticeably older so it's kind of weird seeing a guy that old not understanding a lot of the things we kind of take for granted but that's the whole premise of the movie.

Does this movie still work today? I would say yes, it was still an enjoyable romp with a naive Australian doing a lot of funny things. People will still get the humor and understand what's going on. There are a lot of throwback things that you start thinking wow technology has advanced greatly in a short span of time.

The characters were all acted out impeccably. They all hit the mark and no one did anything that really throw me off of the movie. Everything seemed pretty natural. Some might argue that some of the actors in Australia may have been acting out stereotypical versions of the characters they were playing. I don't know. I've never been to Australia before.

Overall, I still enjoyed the movie today just as I remembered it when I was a kid. It still had the magic that it had a few decades ago. It's shocking because not all movies are able to pass the test of time like this. This of course is no masterpiece of a movie but it is a good diversion and time killer if you're looking for something to watch that can keep your attention. I'll have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. It gets a pretty good passing mark but it's still not something that I would want to re-watch over and over again.