Review: 'Crocodile Dundee In L.A.,' 'Freddy'

Here's an overview of new films in theaters this week:

'Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles'

"Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" is a movie that could have been a lot of fun, but instead it just lacks bite.

Our fearless hero, again played by Paul Hogan (who else?), is living a quiet life in the Outback with his American significant other Sue and their son, Mikey.

He's still wrangling crocs, but it now illegal to kill them, so he has been reduced to a tourist attraction in a world where a giant aquatic terror eats not one, but two, boats and leaves him and his friend high and dry on a tree limb.

The scenes of Mick showing his son the delicate balance of neighbor and respect for the animal kingdom in an unspoiled Australian countryside are very sweet and genuine.

However, Sue is called back to the states to take over as bureau chief of her father's newspaper while he finds someone to replace the original chief, who died under suspicious circumstances. So Mick and Mikey decide to tag along to the wilds of Los Angeles, where the sharks wear suits and a struggling movie studio has a deep, dark secret.

Seems like a perfect opportunity for fish-out-of-water antics, but this movie keeps squandering its opportunities. For example, when Mick and his buddy wander into a gay cowboy bar, we don?t get to follow them in and see how they interact with the eccentric locals. All we get to see is the pair hightailing it out of there as fast as their legs will carry them.

There are plenty of fun situations, but the timing of the scene, or the photography or the music cues, usually are just enough off to reduce a belly laugh to a mild chuckle.

Maybe it's time for Crocodile Dundee to get out of Los Angeles before somebody makes him into a Gucci purse. --Debra Scott

'Freddy Got Fingered' (R)

I went to see "Freddy Got Fingered" wondering just how much sick humor I could endure before feeling physically ill.

Admittedly, my sense of humor is darker than most, and I can enjoy the odd bit of juvenile comedy -- I loved "Dumb and Dumber" -- but "Freddy" was a true exercise in self-control: controlling my urge to look away, controlling my urge to retch, and controlling my urge to be offended.

For the most part, I was able to take Canadian comedian Tom Green's antics in stride, figuring that squirting bodily fluids and revolting animal sequences were par for the course for him. But the title joke, involving a false charge of child molestation, was a bit too disturbing to laugh at. I guess Green found this reviewer's line of tolerance.

That said, "Freddy Got Fingered" is not without its funny and surprising moments. The plot stems from Green's own struggles with family while attempting to follow his dream of making it in television. It's taken way over the top, though, with Green's character Gord Brody waging all-out war with his unaccepting father, played adeptly by Rip Torn.

The plot itself is rather feeble, and seems more like filler between Green's comic "bits." There's a romantic sub-plot, featuring Marisa Coughlan as Green's love interest. Her character, confined to a wheelchair, takes sexual pleasure from being whacked repeatedly in the legs with a bamboo stick. Green's new bride Drew Barrymore has a cameo as a secretary.

Green has a way of delivering drippingly caustic lines while retaining a blank, somewhat sour expression, which is pretty damned amusing. At other times he acts like an attention-starved kid who'll be as annoying as possible to get noticed. One particular scene comes to mind, in which his character dives into the toilet wearing his dad's scuba gear in order to capture the "treasure" (actually, soap on a rope).

Compared to "Joe Dirt," a piece of absolute garbage that I was forced to sit through the week before, "Freddy" is redeeming in its ability to surprise viewers. I laughed out loud when Torn's character called Barrymore "Fat-ass" and threw her into a pyramid of plastic barrels. It was ridiculous, maybe, stupid, yes, but funny and unexpected. That automatically gives it an edge on the aforementioned piece of bland "SNL" tripe.

Mainly, though, the film is just gross -- really gross. If you're not a Green fan, don't even bother seeing it. If you are a Green fan, you still might not like it. Some fans have said that this film just rehashes a bunch of stunts that have played out tirelessly on his television program.

So who will like "Freddy?" Not many, I'm guessing. If you plan to give it a chance, go with the assumption that you will be revolted ... and maybe skip the buttered popcorn. --Suzanne Ellis

'In The Mood For Love' (PG)

"In The Mood For Love" is a languorous love story that is deceptively slow-moving.

Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) take rooms in adjoining apartments in crowded Hong Kong in 1962.

Both have spouses who are away on business more than they are at home. They are both lonely, both attractive and both searching for a kindred spirit.

A passing acquaintance soon turns into something more than friends, but something less than lovers as the pair battle with their loyalty to their absent better halves. But are their loyalty and their sacrifice deserved?

The film starts off a little confusing until you figure out who all the characters are and realize that the absent husband and wife are, for the most part, offscreen flies in the ointment.

This is a very quiet movie. Background music is almost never used during dialogue scenes and is reserved for the slow-motion, sensual scenes that illustrate the isolation of Chow and Chan. The music is a marvel in the way that it slowly builds up the romantic mood for their meetings.

The camera lovingly follows the perfect curves of Cheung as she walks to the noodle shop every day for her solitary meal. As the two get to know each other, the mood is not set by words, but by gorgeous, lush torch songs by a French-singing Nat King Cole.

If you can get past the first 20 minutes of the film, as the scene is slowly but deliberately set, you will be rewarded by realizations that are revealed like the delicate layers of an onion.

"In the Mood for Love" is not an easy movie to like, but it is a movie that you can love if you are willing to allow it to work its magic. --Debra Scott

'The Tailor Of Panama' (R)

"The Tailor of Panama" could do with a tailoring of its own -- particularly with star Pierce Brosnan.

Brosnan plays author John le Carre's ruthless and egotistical British spy Andy Osnard. But Osnard is no James Bond. Osnard controls situations and women like a chess game, just as long as he gets what he wants in the end.

When Osnard is banished to Panama as punishment for his misdeeds, he takes advantage of the escalating tensions over who is going to control the canal. Osnard forces well-known tailor and storyteller Harry Pendel to feed him information from his well-connected wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) so that he can sell the information to the highest bidder. Only what part of Pendel's tale is true and what is fabrication? People will end up dead before it becomes clear.

"The Tailor of Panama" is extremely murky in the beginning and leaves viewers wondering who is who and what is going on before it finally settles into a comprehensible plot.

This is one of the few times that we have seen Brosnan as a rotter, and the film needs a scene that establishes exactly what kind of lengths he is willing to go to for his own ego. Because this is not made clear from the beginning, we as the audience are still figuring him out when we should be paying attention to the machinations of the complicated story.

Even the music needs to be more intrinsic to the action. In some places it is rolling along just fine, but then it stops for long periods of dialogue when it would be helpful in establishing the mood.

The actors, however, are all first rate, even those in the smaller roles of Marta (Leonar Varela), Pendel's disfigured business manager, and Mickie (Brendan Gleeson), Pendel's doomed, streetwise Panamanian friend.

"The Tailor of Panama" is a little like an ill-fitting suit. It fits beautifully in some places, but in other places it needs major alterations. --Debra Scott