Now you would think that with the current fascination that America has with Australia that now would be the perfect time for the return of Crocodile Dundee. Last year, we had the Olympics in Australia, and this year we watched "Survivor" in the Australian Outback. Given that, however, I believe that the first mistake that Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles made was setting the film in Los Angeles rather than in Australia (the film does start out there, but only briefly). Furthermore, setting the film in Los Angeles didn't provide too much more new experiences for Mick Dundee than New York already provided in the original. In fact, we see much of the same sort of jokes rehashed but still recognizable and not so funny the second time around.

For the sake of fun, and in the tradition of a common literary exercise, I would like to compare and contrast the failure of making a third Crocodile Dundee movie with the success of making a third Indiana Jones movie (as in The Last Crusade). First of all, there are many similarities between the two. Both trilogies started out with great blockbusters for their first film, while their second was tolerated as "good, but not quite as good as the original," and their third came quite a few years after the first and second. Both have great and memorable lead characters whose name adorns the titles of their films. Furthermore, the main characters themselves have many similarities. Both Crocodile Dundee (Paul Hogan) and Indiana Jones are one-of-a-kind, adventuresome, fearless, easily recognizable, and are always seen with their trademark hats.

However, while Crocodile Dundee centers on humor and interjects a bit of adventure, Indiana Jones is just the opposite. And there are many other differences between the two. For example, Indiana Jones is always switching between leading ladies, while Crocodile Dundee has settled down. Crocodile Dundee is quite comfortable around dangerous creatures, while Indiana Jones is absolutely terrified of snakes, rats, tarantulas, etc. But the most important differences between these two trilogies were in how they went about making the third installment.

One of the best things that The Last Crusade provided was a strong new character in Indiana Jones' father, played by action-legend and Hollywood superstar, Sean Connery. In Los Angeles introduces Mick Dundee's son, Mickey Dundee (Serge Cockburn - below, right). While Mickey did provide some funny scenes, including one where he "stuns" a rat that made its way into the classroom, he didn't draw any huge crowds to the theater because young Mr. Cockburn is not yet well known. Even though, with that said, what I did like about the latest Crocodile Dundee movie was that all of its main slate of actors returned to reprise their characters' roles. This did avoid the huge mistake that has been made with other sequels (such as Jason Patric trying to fill Keanu Reeves' shoes in Speed II or Julianne Moore attempting to replace Jodie Foster in Hannibal or the long list of people who have failed at repeating Michael Keaton's performances as Batman).

The Last Crusade was also heavily advertised. Most of us well remember the Pepsi commercial where those who chose Coke had "chosen poorly" while the one who chose Pepsi had "chosen wisely." As for the latest Dundee film, I probably saw one or two commercials on TV and that was it.

However, the biggest mistake that Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles made as opposed to The Last Crusade was in its script. The former's script has a really dumb plot and is more a loose association of old jokes told in a slightly different way. The latter's script was just the opposite with a terrific plot, good development of its characters (we see more of where Indiana Jones came from), and a climactic ending. The ending in the latest Crocodile Dundee movie was a pathetically corny marriage proposal over a couple of knocked out bad guys in a lion cage.

However, with all of my complaining and contrasting, I must admit that I did enjoy myself for much of the movie. Besides, its hard to not like Crocodile Dundee. He is one of the most endearing characters in movie history. Its just too bad that this third time around wasn't quite as good as it should have been.

It's great to see some of these characters again, but on its own, this movie is something of a flop.