''Crocodile Dundee II'' is a 1988

action comedy film Action comedy is a genre that combines aspects of action and comedy. The genre is most prevalent in film with action comedy films, though several TV series fit this genre. Film The action comedy film is a film genre that combines aspects of actio ...

and the second of the ''Crocodile Dundee'' film series. It is a

sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...

to ''

Crocodile Dundee ''Crocodile Dundee'' (stylized as ''"Crocodile" Dundee'' in the U.S.) is a 1986 action comedy film set in the Australian Outback and in New York City. It stars Paul Hogan as the weathered Mick Dundee, and American actress Linda Kozlowski as ...

'' (1986) and was followed by ''

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles ''Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles'' (also known as ''Crocodile Dundee III'') is a 2001 action comedy film directed by Simon Wincer and starring Paul Hogan. It is the sequel to ''Crocodile Dundee II'' (1988) and the third and final film of the ...

'' (2001). Actors

Paul Hogan Paul Hogan (born 8 October 1939) is an Australian actor and comedian. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance as ...

and

Linda Kozlowski Linda Kozlowski (born January 7, 1958) is an American former actress. She is best known for her role as Sue Charlton in the ''Crocodile Dundee'' film series (1986–2001), with the first installment earning her a Golden Globe Award nomination. ...

reprise their roles as Mick Dundee and Sue Charlton, respectively, here shown opposing a Colombian drug cartel. The film was directed by

John Cornell John Cornell (2 March 1941 – 23 July 2021) was an Australian actor, director, producer, writer, and businessman. He was best known for his role as "Strop" on ''The Paul Hogan Show'', and he was instrumental in the introduction of World Serie ...

and shot on location in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It cost $14 million to make.

TV Week ''TV Week'' is a weekly Australian magazine that provides television program listings information and highlights, as well as television-related news. Content ranges from previews for upcoming storylines of popular television programs, particu ...

magazine, 4 June 1988, page 11. "Box office war" by Ivor Davis.

Plot

A year has passed since the events of ''

'', and Mick Dundee and Susan "Sue" Charlton are living happily together in New York. Although Mick's ignorance of city life is a hazard when he attempts to continue his former lifestyle, like

blast fishing Blast fishing, fish bombing, dynamite fishing or grenade fishing is a destructive fishing practice using explosives to stun or kill schools of fish for easy collection. This often illegal practice is extremely destructive to the surrounding ec ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

's waters, Sue's writing has made him a popular public figure. He later goes to work for Leroy Brown, a mild-mannered stationery salesman trying to live up to his self-conceived 'bad guy in the streets' image. While working for the

DEA The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic en ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

, Sue's ex-husband Bob (mentioned, but not seen, in the first movie) takes photographs of a

drug cartel A drug cartel is any criminal organization with the intention of supplying drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when the ...

leader's murder of an unknown person, and is spotted by one of the cartel's sentries. He sends the photographs to Sue before being murdered. Colombian Cartel leader Luis Rico and his brother and top lieutenant, Miguel, go to

to retrieve the photos. The gangsters take Sue hostage, leading Mick to ask Leroy for help. Leroy contacts a local street gang, whom Mick asks to create a distraction by caterwauling at the mansion's perimeter, leading most of the cartel's guards on a wild goose chase while Mick rescues Sue. Rico goes into hiding to avoid arrest, and after his henchmen fail a subsequent attempt to kill Sue, Mick decides to take Sue to

to protect themselves on familiar ground. In Walkabout Creek, Mick is enthusiastically welcomed back by friends. After getting provisions, he and Sue take refuge on his personal land, named Belonga Mick ('Mick's Place'; see bilong in

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...

). Here, Sue discovers that Mick legally owns a large plot of land, including a gold mine. Rico and his men track them to Australia, where they hire some locals to assist, but their Aboriginal tracker abandons them when he hears that their quarry is Mick (the implication being that Mick is a good and respected friend). The gangsters then take Mick's friend Walter as a hostage, but Mick saves his friend by shooting Walter slightly. Walter convinces the gangsters that Mick's failed attack was because he is the only person suitable to guide them, so they take him as a replacement tracker. He then leads the gangsters on a false trail through the Outback, during which Mick, with the help of his Aboriginal friends he summoned with a

bullroarer The bullroarer, ''rhombus'', or ''turndun'', is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over great distances. It consists of a piece of wood attached to a string, which when swung in a large circle ...

, manages to reduce the opposition's numbers one by one, leaving the rest increasingly nervous. In the end, he retrieves Walter from Rico and Miguel, leaving the latter to face him alone. Rico sets a

bushfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...

in a ploy to corner Mick, but Mick regains the upper hand, captures Rico, and switches clothes with him to lure Miguel into a vulnerable position. Sue, Walter, and Miguel begin shooting at the pair from a distance, mistaking their targets for each other. Walter and Miguel shoot Mick and Rico, respectively, and Rico falls down an

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

to his death. Sue shoots and kills Miguel, after which they learn of the clothing switch from one of the aborigines. Sue is relieved to find that Walter's shot has only wounded Mick, and the two embrace. He asks her if she is ready to go home, to which she joyfully replies, "I ''am'' home."

Cast

as Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee *

as Susan "Sue" Charlton *

John Meillon John Meillon, ( ; 1 May 1934 – 11 August 1989), was an Australian character actor, known for many straight as well as comedy roles, he became most widely known internationally as Walter Reilly in the films ''Crocodile Dundee'' and ''Crocodil ...

as Walter Reilly * Hechter Ubarry as Luis Rico * Juan Fernández as Miguel *

Charles S. Dutton Charles Stanley Dutton (born January 30, 1951) is an American actor and director. He is best known for his roles in the television series ''Roc (TV series), Roc'' (1991–1994) and the television film ''The Piano Lesson (film), The Piano Lesson'' ...

as Leroy Brown *

Kenneth Welsh Kenneth Welsh, (March 30, 1942 – May 5, 2022) was a Canadian film and television actor. He was best known as the multi-faceted villain Windom Earle in ''Twin Peaks'', for his roles in the films ''The Day After Tomorrow'', '' Adoration'', ''Su ...

as Brannigan *

Stephen Root Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor. He has starred as Jimmy James on the television sitcom ''NewsRadio'', as Milton Waddams in the film ''Office Space'' (1999), and provided the voices of Bill Dauterive and Buck Stricklan ...

as DEA Agent *

Dennis Boutsikaris Dennis Boutsikaris (; born December 21, 1952) is an American character actor who has won the Obie Award twice. He is also a narrator of audiobooks, for which he has won 13 Golden Earphone Awards and 8 Audie Awards. He won Best Audiobook of the Y ...

as Bob Tanner *

Ernie Dingo Ernie is a masculine given name, frequently a short form (hypocorism) of Ernest, Ernald, Ernesto, or Verner. It may refer to: People * Ernie Accorsi (born 1941), American football executive * Ernie Adams (disambiguation) * Ernie Afaganis (born ...

as Charlie * Steve Rackman as Donk * Gerry Skilton as Nugget *

Gus Mercurio Augustino Eugenio Mercurio (10 August 19287 December 2010) better known as Gus Mercurio, was an American-born Australian character actor who appeared in radio, television, and film. Early life Mercurio, the eldest child of Vincent A. Mercurio ...

as Frank *

Susie Essman Susan Essman is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer and television producer, best known for her role as Susie Greene on '' Curb Your Enthusiasm'', Bobbi Wexler on ''Broad City'', and the voice of Mittens in '' Bolt''. Early life Es ...

as Tour Guide *

Colin Quinn Colin Edward Quinn (born June 6, 1959) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Quinn first gained widespread attention for his work as a cast member and writer for the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1995 to 20 ...

as Onlooker at Mansion *

Luis Guzman Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

as Jose * Alec Wilson as Denning * Jim Holt as Erskine * Bill Sandy as Teddy The Aboriginal Tracker * Alfred Coolwell as Aboriginal *

Tatyana Ali Tatyana Marisol Ali is an American actress and singer best known for her role as Ashley Banks on the NBC sitcom ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' from 1990 to 1996. She starred as Tyana Jones on the TV One original series ''Love That Girl!'', an ...

as Park Girl *

Jace Alexander Jason "Jace" Alexander (born April 7, 1964) is an American former television director, actor, and convicted sex offender from New York City. In 2015, Alexander was arrested for the downloading and file sharing of child pornography, and later pled ...

as Rat

Release

Theatrical

The film opened 25 May 1988 in the United States and Canada. In 1987, during the film's production, Paramount outbid the international unit of

20th Century-Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...

for the worldwide rights to the film's sequel.

Reception

Box office

''Crocodile Dundee II'' was also a worldwide hit, but not as big as its predecessor. The film set an opening week record in Australia and went on to gross $24,916,805 in Australia, which is equivalent to $59,890,392 in 2022 dollars. The film was released theatrically in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

in May 1988. For its first six days of American release, its box office receipts of US$29.2 million exceeded those of ''

Rambo III ''Rambo III'' is a 1988 American action film directed by Peter MacDonald and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, who also reprises his role as Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. A sequel to '' Rambo: First Blood Part II'' (1985), it is the third in ...

'' at $21.2 million. It grossed $109,306,210 at the box office in the United States and Canada. It was the second highest-grossing film that year for Paramount (second only to ''

Coming to America ''Coming to America'' is a 1988 American romantic comedy film directed by John Landis and based on a story originally created by Eddie Murphy, who also stars in the lead role. The film also co-stars Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Shari Head ...

'') and the sixth highest-grossing film at the

box office. It also had the biggest opening ever in the United Kingdom with an opening week gross of £2,797,164, including a record opening week gross for a European cinema of £169,139 at the

Odeon Leicester Square The Odeon Luxe Leicester Square is a prominent cinema building in the West End of London. Built in the Art Deco style and completed in 1937, the building has been continually altered in response to developments in cinema technology, and was the ...

Critical response

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' deemed the sequel to be inferior, noting "the novelty has begun to wear thin, even if Mr. Hogan remains generally irresistible". ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' called the film "a disappointing follow-up to the disarmingly charming first feature with Aussie star Paul Hogan.

his His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, in ...

sequel is too slow to constitute an adventure and has too few laughs to be a comedy – resulting in a mildly entertaining 111 minutes that has much less of the freshness and spark that legions of filmgoers loved in the original".

Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...

of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it "has too much action initially, losing its trademark, gentle touch for the first half of the movie. The film is much more compelling in its concluding scenes in the Australian outback than in its comedy-action scenes in New York City that open the film. The result is that we leave the theater with a bit of a smile, but just a bit. It's not a steady, complete film." Section 7, Page A, I. Kevin Thomas of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' was generally positive, calling it "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."

Hal Hinson Hal Hinson is an American film critic who wrote for ''The Washington Post'' from 1987 to 1997. As of July 2015 he has 887 reviews collected on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Hinson has been cited as a critic who is unpopular with his fellow critic ...

of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' called the film "about as laid-back a movie as you're ever likely to nap through. The actors take forever to recite their lines, and scenes unfold as if the filmmakers had rented the screen by the month." Hinson added that Cornell "seems not to have understood that for Dundee's heroic laconicism to work, the world around him has to have some energy, it's got to move. But Cornell doesn't know how to create pace or movement. He directs as if he were swinging in a hammock." On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has a score of 9% from 32 reviews, with an average rating of 3.60/10. The critics consensus reads, "Retelling its predecessor's same joke with diminishing returns, Crocodile Dundee II sees the franchise's enjoyability go down under." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

the film has a score of 41% based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the same grade as its predecessor. Then-

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

viewed this film at

Camp David Camp David is the country retreat for the president of the United States of America. It is located in the wooded hills of Catoctin Mountain Park, in Frederick County, Maryland, near the towns of Thurmont and Emmitsburg, about north-northwe ...

on June 10, 1988.

Sequel

A sequel titled ''

'' was released in 2001.

References

External links

* * * *
''Crocodile Dundee II''
at Oz Movies
Crocodile Dundee II at the National Film and Sound Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crocodile Dundee II Crocodile Dundee 1988 films Australian comedy films 1980s adventure films 1980s adventure comedy films Paramount Pictures films Films about Colombian drug cartels Films about drugs Films set in New York City Films shot in Australia Films set in the Northern Territory 1980s action comedy films Films directed by John Cornell Films scored by Peter Best (composer) Australian sequel films Films produced by Jane Scott 1988 directorial debut films 1988 comedy films 1980s English-language films