Movie Review: The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002)

by Idris Hsi - July 14, 2002

I will admit that the prospect of seeing Steve and Terri Irwin on the big screen in a Hollywood movie boggled my mind. Our collective misgivings were not helped any by the dreadful previews. It was a movie that looked so bad and low budget that it was begging to be watched. So like Disney lemmings forced to run off the edge of a cliff, we went to the cheapest twilight matinee showing that we could manage.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Crocodile Hunter series shown on Animal Planet, The Discovery Channel, and, occasionally, prime time, Steve Irwin is a real person. He and his wife Terri began filming wildlife documentaries about 10 years ago that turned into a popular television series now seen internationally. In between filming and sometimes while filming, they run Australia's Zoo in Queensland. The appeal of the Crocodile Hunter is his enthusiasm for his work, his Australian dialect, and his propensity to throw himself into situations where he's more than likely to die. Steve catches crocodiles using nothing more than his body, some ropes, and some nets. He "wrangles" some of the most poisonous snakes in the world with just his hand and sometimes a small branch. Through it all, he keeps sporadic eye contact and steady dialogue with the audience, cheerfully describing how deadly the beastie is, how much danger he's in, and the various behaviors and characteristics that make this animal special. His mission is to save the animals and their habitat by educating the world about them. Message aside, the Irwin's documentaries are fun to watch and have the nice benefit of being good entertainment as well.

"Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course" is a great bad movie. The movie opens with a CGI shot of a satellite self-destructing that probably represented at least a 1/3 of the movie's total budget. The satellite ejects a small pod that finds its way to, in order, Australian airspace, Queensland, the ground, the trunk of a small tree, and an crocodile's gaping jaws. The poor maligned CIA have been picked as the villains in and we're told that this small pod contains "information that could change the entire world and must be recovered at all costs." After we picked ourselves off the theater floor from laughing, we looked up to see a Crocodile Hunter documentary and Steve scrambling after a perenty (a goanna-class lizard) across the red sand of a Queensland desert while describing the perenty's living habits. After some poo analysis, the movie cut back to the spy part. The movie flips between a Crocodile Hunter documentary and a bad spy movie until the two independent threads meet as the agents determine that Steve and Terri have captured the pod for their own nefarious purposes and must be stopped at all costs.

I loved the whole thing. Steve Irwin is the Jackie Chan of nature documentaries. He doesn't use stuntmen for anything. One of the scenes in the movie show Steve and Terri capturing a rogue crocodile and wrestling it onto their boat. If you look closely, you'll see Steve's leg is bleeding - it's real blood. I heard that Steve filmed the 3 most dangerous stunts in the movie before pitching it to the executives so that those pesky little issues like insurance wouldn't factor in the decision-making and filming process as it frequently does in the Jackie Chan movies. So that's really Steve almost getting bitten by a real brown snake or almost getting tagged on the face by a venomous bird-eating spider. The plot of the "main movie" was ridiculous but made laughable by the deadpan, wink-wink delivery of the minor characters. After seeing this movie, I'd be willing to go see a Crocodile Hunter documentary without the silly spy subplot but it would probably be harder to sell.

I give Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course a 2 on the Good Movie Scale, an 8 on the Bad Movie Scale, and a 7 on the Documentary Scale. I had more fun at this movie than I did at Men in Black 2 which had about 30-40 times the budget. But definitely see it at an afternoon or twilight matinee if you're going to go as it may not be enough fun for full price. Incidentally, I have no intention of ever seeing The Country Bears, the latest Disney offering, in my lifetime unless a gun is being held to my head. An article in the NY Times described it as an attempt on the part of Disney producers to recover the family market that they lost last year to movies like Harry Potter and Spy Kids. We saw the previews for this act of desperation today. The plot seems to be one of a small bear discovering that he was adopted by a human family and his going off to find his kinfolk who are playing in a Country band but later evolve into Rock musicians. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. I wish that parents would be more discriminating and do something intelligent like refuse to take their kids to such crap to send the Disney company a message. But from what I've seen over the years of children's programming, toys, and entertainment, that's entirely too much to hope for. Baaaaaa.

Our Drive-In Totals:

0 breasts
1 shirt-removal
2 dead bodies ('roo and a male spider)
1 dead hat
1 joey
1 perenty
1 bird-eating spider
1 brown snake
1 fierce snake
1 really grumpy croc
1 femme fatale
1 dynamic duo
The Gate Escape
The Crocodile Hunter conspiracy hypothesis
100 bloke/300 mgs venom
1 waterproof cell phone
1 non-waterproof laptop
Supersecret, Ultra-rare, Top-like Plot Device
Running Commentary
Commentary while Running

Kung Fu
Gun Fu
Dynamite Fu
Fang Fu
Dog Fu
Boat Fu
Rope Fu
Fierce Snake Fu
Bird Spider Fu

Goanna Fu
Goanna Poo
Croc Fu
Croc Poo

Good Movie Scale: 2
Bad Movie Scale: 8
Documentary Scale: 7