| THE CROCODILE HUNTER: COLLISION COURSE Film Rating:  Director: John Stainton Producer: Judy Bailey, Arnold Rifkin, John Stainton Screenplay: Holly Goldberg Sloan Director of Photography: David Burr Cast: Steve Irwin, Terri Irwin, Magda Szubanski, David Wenham Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
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Review by:
John C. Ardussi
7/14/02
For years I have taken grief from people for my like and support of the movie The Three Amigos. It struck a chord for me and to this day is one of my favorite movies. And yet another more popular movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, I didn't get. I thought it was bad. Well, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course feels like it will be one of those love/hate movies. You'll either get it or you won't.
If you have ever watched Steve Irwin on his show on cable, you will recognize much of what goes on in the movie. Throughout, Irwin and his wife Terri play to the camera as if they are doing one of his TV shows, while in the background, CIA agents are trying to recover a part from an intelligence satellite which landed in Australia and was swallowed by a crocodile. There are a lot of good things in this movie, but the plot is not one of them -- it is not just "not good," it is bad. Really bad.
But as viewers of his TV show know, Steve Irwin can fill a screen and more with his enthusiasm and willingness to get very close to real danger. There are no stunt doubles for Steve and Terri in this film. They actually go out on a boat and he wrestles a crocodile, and later he handles several dangerous snakes and a spider. At the same time, he is willing to share his real, actual, likely unscripted fear while handling them.
The distractions from the goodness come in the form of the attempted storyline about the CIA agents and a local Queenslander Brozzie Drewett (Magda Szubanski). Brozzie is not happy about all the visitors she is getting as a result of her land being the place where the satellite eating crocodile decides to hang out. While the locals are more interesting than the U.S. government agents, I would have liked a little more Australian flavor out of them to make the film more interesting. At times I found myself actually wondering if they shot the film in the U.S. The distinctions between the U.S. and Australia were not played out as much as they easily could have been.
In the end, I give it a mid-rating. Of
course, that doesn't seem to make sense from a guy who just described
the movie as a love/hate affair. If I were to rate it based on
the story, the rating would be unfavorable. But I had a lot of
fun with all the animal scenes -- so much so that I can't say
this is a bad movie. In fact, for kids, I think this is a great
movie, although you can't ignore all the time spent on the failed
plot. Maybe someday technology will allow us to separate the good
and bad parts of this movie like some episode of Star Trek
where the transporters go horribly wrong. I would then be glad
to watch the good parts again, but until then will wussily stand
my middle ground.
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