Paul Rodriguez

Somebody at Paramount Pictures must have owed Paul Hogan a humongous favor to green-light "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles." Before even seeing the movie, I could have told you it's 15 years too late for another sequel in this series.

But that's the least of the problems with this lifeless, asinine, staggeringly inept mess of haggard franchise gags, out-of-date pop culture japes and Hollywood backlot antics that are less realistic than the tour at Universal Studios.

The obscenely contrived plot follows Mick Dundee, girlfriend Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) and their son Mikey (Serge Cockburn) to L.A. as Sue takes over the local newsroom of her dad's newspaper chain. The previous bureau chief died suspiciously while poking around the finances of a B-grade studio that cranks out money-losing action flicks for Eastern Europe. Could all these mean-looking toughs in ponytails and shark skin suits be -- oh, I don't know -- crooked?

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After a generation on hiatus, the crazy, ensemble-cast chase comedy is back with an MTV vengeance in "Rat Race," a cornball marathon between a dozen second-tier stars vying for a $2 million booty.

The gimmick: To entertain his high-rolling clientele, a Las Vegas hotelier -- played by John Cleese with a slightly insane, toothy-dentured grin -- recruits an oddball assortment of zealous casino tourists to dash across the desert to New Mexico in search of a bus station locker where the loot has been stashed. The runners think it's all a zany promotion for Cleese's resort, but in the penthouse billionaires from all over the world are placing high-stakes bets on who will get there first, just for rich-guy kicks.

The players: Jon Lovitz is an chintzy, unemployed soccer dad who red-lines his minivan while dragging his family along, on the pretense of a job offer so he doesn't get chewed out for ruining their vacation. He catches hell anyway when the car breaks down outside a "white power" roadside attraction and they steal Hitler's limo to complete the pilgrimage.

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It's a shame "Price of Glory" is such an elementary piece of utterly predictable, movie-of-the-week style filmmaking, because this boxing-themed, strife-defeating family drama certainly has its heart in the right place.

A throwback to the kind of medicinal matinee movies made for Sunday afternoon outings with the whole family, this Jimmy Smits vehicle is a sincere -- if sanctimonious -- affair about a former, failed middleweight contender living vicariously through his three sons, bruisers-in-training all.

A proud but temperamental, assembly-line union man with a do-it-yourself training ring in his back yard, Smits is a stern daddy who drives his boys hard. His beautiful wife with shampoo commercial hair (Maria Del Mar) wants the boys to go to college, but Pop thinks they could all be champs, and he's determined to manage each of them to a title.

Continue reading: Price Of Glory Review