# The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee
**The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee** is a 2020 Australian comedy film in which [Paul Hogan](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-hogan) plays a fictionalized version of himself, a retired celebrity in Los Angeles who must keep his reputation clean over six weeks to secure a knighthood for services to comedy.[1](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/films/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) It was directed by Dean Murphy, written by Murphy and Robert Mond, and co-stars [Chevy Chase](https://www.edgepedia.org/chevy-chase), John Cleese, and [Olivia Newton-John](https://www.edgepedia.org/olivia-newton-john).[1](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/films/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) • [2](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/news/article/paul-hogan-returns-in-the-very-excellent-mr.-dundee) The film was planned for cinemas but skipped a theatrical release because of the COVID-19 pandemic and premiered on Amazon Prime Video.[3](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-review-paul-hogan-tries-to-not-get-cancelled-in-confused-film) Critics received it poorly; it holds 18% on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metascore of 24.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_very_excellent_mr_dundee) • [5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/critic-reviews/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writers | Dean Murphy (director); written by Dean Murphy and Robert Mond[2](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/news/article/paul-hogan-returns-in-the-very-excellent-mr.-dundee) • [6](https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) |
| Lead cast | Paul Hogan as himself, with Chevy Chase, John Cleese, Olivia Newton-John, and Jacob Elordi[1](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/films/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) • [6](https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) |
| Premise | Hogan, retired in Brentwood, California, is offered a knighthood for services to comedy and must keep his reputation clean for six weeks[1](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/films/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) |
| Release | Announced February 14, 2020 for a planned April 30, 2020 cinema release; skipped cinemas due to the pandemic and went to Prime Video; US streaming release December 9, 2020[2](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/news/article/paul-hogan-returns-in-the-very-excellent-mr.-dundee) • [3](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-review-paul-hogan-tries-to-not-get-cancelled-in-confused-film) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_very_excellent_mr_dundee) |
| Runtime / rating | 88 minutes; PG-13 (suggestive references, some language)[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_very_excellent_mr_dundee) |
| Reception | 18% Tomatometer (22 reviews), 45% audience score, Metascore 24, IMDb 5.1[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_very_excellent_mr_dundee) • [5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/critic-reviews/) • [7](https://screenwiseapp.com/media/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-movie) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and premise
The film's Hogan lives in retirement in [Brentwood, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/brentwood-california), doing the daily crossword and taking regular calls from Lucy, his 10-year-old granddaughter in Sydney. When his agent tells him he will receive a knighthood for services to comedy, he turns the offer down. Lucy then calls: she has told children at her new school that her grandfather was offered a knighthood, and they laughed at her. To help her salvage her reputation, Hogan persuades his reluctant agent to call the Palace and get the honor back on.[1](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/films/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee)
The next six weeks destroy his public image despite his efforts to do the right thing. He is accused of racism when he questions the casting of [Will Smith](https://www.edgepedia.org/will-smith) as his son in a hypothetical *Dundee 4*; he brawls with an ill-mannered [Crocodile Dundee](https://www.edgepedia.org/crocodile-dundee) impersonator on [Hollywood Boulevard](https://www.edgepedia.org/hollywood-boulevard); he steps in for a no-show John Travolta at a charity *Grease* duet with Olivia Newton-John, enraging the musical's fans; and he ends up in a car with an unexpected Uber driver while running from the law.[1](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/films/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) The British Board of Film Classification's content advice records the same material: a white man saying he does not believe a black man should play his son in a movie (with the note that the film does not endorse racism), a Dundee impersonator using "knife" as innuendo, and mild comic violence including a man throwing tinned food at another.[8](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc01mjkznjc)
The premise inverts the fish-out-of-water setup of the original *Crocodile Dundee* films. As Luke Buckmaster wrote in *The Guardian*, the displacement is temporal rather than locational: Hogan is a figure from an earlier media era washing up in a modern, culturally conscientious world.[3](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-review-paul-hogan-tries-to-not-get-cancelled-in-confused-film)
## Production and release
Transmission Films announced the film on February 14, 2020, with a planned national Australian cinema release on April 30, 2020. Dean Murphy had previously directed Hogan in *Strange Bedfellows* (2004), *Charlie & Boots* (2009), and *That's Not My Dog!*.[2](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/news/article/paul-hogan-returns-in-the-very-excellent-mr.-dundee) The announced cast alongside Hogan included [John Cleese](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-cleese), Chevy Chase, Olivia Newton-John, Shane Jacobson, Julia Morris, Rachael Carpani, Jim Jefferies, Reggie VelJohnson, and [Wayne Knight](https://www.edgepedia.org/wayne-knight), with promised surprise appearances.[2](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/news/article/paul-hogan-returns-in-the-very-excellent-mr.-dundee) Lionsgate's page adds [Jacob Elordi](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacob-elordi) and Kerry Armstrong to the cast and lists producers Dean Murphy and Nigel Odell.[6](https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee)
The April theatrical date did not survive the pandemic. The film skipped cinemas and landed on Prime Video in Australia in July 2020, available from July 17.[3](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-review-paul-hogan-tries-to-not-get-cancelled-in-confused-film) • [9](https://www.screenhub.com.au/news/reviews/film-review-the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-is-a-trainwreck-260741-1428324/) In the United States it received a streaming release on December 9, 2020, and Lionsgate lists a home entertainment release date of December 11, 2020 on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_very_excellent_mr_dundee) • [6](https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee) In the United Kingdom it was classified by the BBFC in April and May 2021 with a distributor, Vertigo Releasing, for VOD/streaming and physical media.[8](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc01mjkznjc)
## Critical reception
The film was reviewed poorly. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds an 18% Tomatometer from 22 reviews and a 45% audience score; its critics consensus calls it "a genial but woefully misguided exercise in self-parody" that squanders Hogan's charm on strained satire and celebrity cameos.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_very_excellent_mr_dundee) Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 24, based on four reviews counted as one mixed and three negative.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/critic-reviews/)
Reviewers singled out different failures. Luke Buckmaster gave it 2/5 in *The Guardian*, calling much of it "weird, self-pitying flapdoodle" while crediting the writers with awareness that the humor of the original films would not fly today.[3](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-review-paul-hogan-tries-to-not-get-cancelled-in-confused-film) Frank Scheck in *The Hollywood Reporter* (30/100 on Metacritic) wrote that Hogan displays none of the cheeky charm that made him an international star and mainly walks through the film looking tired and pained.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/critic-reviews/) Richard Kuipers in *Variety* (30) wrote that Hogan's natural-born appeal saves the film from total catastrophe, while [Richard Roeper](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-roeper) in the *Chicago Sun-Times* (25) called it a tone-deaf, unfunny "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-style conceit gone wrong.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/critic-reviews/) Anthony Morris in ScreenHub gave it 2 of 5 stars, criticizing a script that robotically repeats a predictable pattern of blunder, media reaction, and regret, though he noted brief hints of a smarter film in a glam musical dream sequence and a studio meeting in which executives reject an actress as Hogan's love interest for being 50 years his junior, then start going younger.[9](https://www.screenhub.com.au/news/reviews/film-review-the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-is-a-trainwreck-260741-1428324/)
## Relationship to the Crocodile Dundee legacy
The film is a meta-sequel of sorts to *Crocodile Dundee* (1986), in which Hogan played Mick "Crocodile" Dundee, a character nobody in the film's own world calls "Mr Dundee", a title choice reviewer Anthony Morris read as an attempt to distance the new film from Hogan's signature role.[9](https://www.screenhub.com.au/news/reviews/film-review-the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-is-a-trainwreck-260741-1428324) The original film, made on a budget of $8.8 million, reportedly grossed $400 million globally and took around US$170 million in the United States alone, and it remains Australia's highest-grossing film locally and internationally.[10](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/history-culture/2017/01/australian-film-industry/) • [11](https://www.ussc.edu.au/books/the-alliance-at-70/chapter-7-cultural-connections-and-creativity) • [12](https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/) Hogan, who was 80 when the new film was reviewed, had not had a significant film role in more than a decade before it.[3](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-review-paul-hogan-tries-to-not-get-cancelled-in-confused-film)
## References
1. [The Very Excellent Mr Dundee, Transmission Films](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/films/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee)
2. [Paul Hogan Returns In The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, Transmission Films (February 14, 2020)](https://www.transmissionfilms.com.au/news/article/paul-hogan-returns-in-the-very-excellent-mr.-dundee)
3. [The Very Excellent Mr Dundee review, The Guardian (July 17, 2020)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/17/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-review-paul-hogan-tries-to-not-get-cancelled-in-confused-film)
4. [The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_very_excellent_mr_dundee)
5. [The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/critic-reviews/)
6. [The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, Lionsgate](https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee)
7. [The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, Screenwise](https://screenwiseapp.com/media/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-movie)
8. [The Very Excellent Mr Dundee, British Board of Film Classification](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc01mjkznjc)
9. [Film Review: 'The Very Excellent Mr Dundee' is a trainwreck, ScreenHub (July 16, 2020)](https://www.screenhub.com.au/news/reviews/film-review-the-very-excellent-mr-dundee-is-a-trainwreck-260741-1428324/)
10. [Celluloid dreaming, Australian Geographic (2017)](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/history-culture/2017/01/australian-film-industry/)
11. [Cultural connections and creativity, United States Studies Centre](https://www.ussc.edu.au/books/the-alliance-at-70/chapter-7-cultural-connections-and-creativity)
12. [The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, Flicks UK](https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/the-very-excellent-mr-dundee/)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2019 to 2020 › Released in 2020*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 20, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 20, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license