The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee (2020)
(On Cable TV, July 2021) You have to have some sympathy for entertainers who, after a lifetime of hard work, personal development and multiple projects, still end up recognized for one single thing. Paul Hogan may have had quite a varied career in Australia, but his North American legacy will forever remain playing “Crocodile” Dundee, and so The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee ends up being a meta-Hollywood comedy that sees the 80-year-old wrestle with his unescapable legacy. Hogan was old back in 2001 with the third Dundee film — he’s even older here and looks like it. Perhaps the film’s best moments are allowing a few fellow senior citizen comedians to poke fun at the passing of fame by playing “themselves” — John Cleese shows up as a maniacal ride-share driver to make ends meet; Chevy Chase as an egomaniac; Wayne Knight as a tap-dancing singer; and Olivia Newton-John as something like window dressing. Hogan’s character himself is quite unlike his own best-known character — mild, gaffe-prone, and trying to retire peacefully even as others try to bring him back, often speaking from a position of ignorance. Much of the film’s structure is cyclical, with Hogan exploring the world of 2021 and committing a series of faux pas that land him on the news as the worst person ever. That gets old quickly (especially when the gags are stretched-out and not all that funny in the first place), even as other moments in the film work relatively well. I did like Cleese’s role and some of the comical flourishes poking fun at modern Hollywood. This being said, there is something a bit awkward about a film built around an older man’s lack of comfort in the world — a film about retirement in which Hogan shows up with his first starring role in a decade. I smirked a few times at The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee and it ranks as one of the weirdest legacy sequels so far, so it’s not all that bad — but there are plenty of missed opportunities along the way for a more incisive take on aging stars and whether they should retire once and for all.