Crocodile Hunter - Collision Course, The
While trying to relocate a troublesome croc, Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin and wife Terri become embroiled in spy games in the Outback.
Story
Steve and Terri Irwin are crocodile relocators in Far North Queensland, Australia. They spend a lot of time, well, relocating crocs--saving a baby kangaroo and charming a few snakes along the way. But all that's about to change. A U.S. satellite has exploded in space, and its black box has re-entered the atmosphere and ended up in the gut of a nasty 12-foot croc the Irwins are about to relocate. The FBI, CIA and goodness knows what other agencies are out to find the box at any cost because it contains data that could change the world's power structure. When the agents cross paths with the Irwins, they become convinced that the two croc hunters are actually spies, mainly because, as one agent says toward the end of the film, ''You don't make that kind of money in cable television.'' That's for sure, and that's probably the reason the producers turned The Crocodile Hunter cable show into a movie. It definitely wasn't because the script was irresistible: The plot is as transparent as shed snakeskin, and the acting (if it can be called that) is as stiff as the spikes on a croc's back. I'm sure this is the kind of movie that a critic shouldn't take seriously, but from its lizard-pooh opening to its crocodile-pooh finish, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course really stinks.
Acting
Director/story writer/producer John Stainton was working with Irwin long before The Crocodile Hunter TV show became an international hit. In fact, he wrote a movie script for Irwin in the mid-1990s that was scrapped because he didn't think Irwin should be acting. It's a shame he didn't take that thought process one step further; we'd all have been spared an agonizing guided tour of a good idea gone very, very bad. The film's stars, while appealing enough in the one-hour documentary format, simply can't sustain a full-length motion picture, and Mr. Irwin would have done well to heed his own advice--''Don't muck with it.'' Granted, at least Stainton was smart enough to present the Irwins doing what they do best--enthusiastically working with wild animals while talking straight into the camera. The task of plot development is left to the other cast members--mainly Australian actors doing caricatures of Americans--who overdramatically play out the goofy spy plot in scenes that are completely separate from the Irwins' animal antics until the last 10 minutes of the film. The Irwin family dog, Sui, is probably the best actor of the bunch--and the smartest, too. Most of the time, she looks like she'd rather be just about anywhere else, which is the most intelligent thing anybody in this film does.
Direction
As if anybody needed it, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course is proof that what works on TV doesn't necessarily make a good movie; the Crocodile Hunter documentary routine quickly grows frustrating in the film because the Irwin scenes do nothing to further what little plot the movie actually has. Plus, the reason why the Irwins continually talk into the camera goes unexplained until the very end of the film--and when someone finally mentions the fact that the Irwins have been ''filming'' their show throughout the movie, it's so offhand that it's easily missed. At the same time, the spy storyline that drives the plot is trite and, because of the movie's bizarre structure, it's played out by actors the audience couldn't care less about rather than by the ones they came to see. The spy scenes separate the Irwin segments like commercials--and, like commercials, when they come on, you just want to get up and go to the bathroom, grab a snack or feed the dog. The best thing that can be said for Stainton's direction is that at least he's not afraid of the film's ridiculousness. Bad though the movie is in every way, Stainton puts it all out there as enthusiastically as Steve Irwin wrestles crocs, and that's saying something. The film also gets across the Irwins' admittedly important message about conservation loud and clear, but that probably won't be enough to keep its audience from becoming extinct.
Bottom Line
This shouldn't-even-be-made-for-TV fiasco is a real croc, but it's so bad it may become a cult classic.