Movie Review by Vivienne Messenger
Starring: Steve Irwin, Terri Irwin, Magda Szubanski, David Wenham, Lachy Hulme
Director: John Stainton
This is a movie that merges fictional drama with real life stunts and is shot in part documentary style. Steve Irwin, who is accompanied by his wife Terri, are renowned for their wildlife TV series and provide the documentary sections which are brimming with explosive and exhilarating animal pursuits, capturing extremely poisonous snakes, a bird spider and most exhausting of all a very crotchety but cunning crocodile.
Meanwhile this crocodile swallows a beacon, part of an American government spy satellite, which fell to the earth – North Queensland, Australia to be precise. Tracked by satellite from America, two CIA agents are sent to this remote part of Australia to retrieve the beacon. So the scene is set and the croc is the focus of three parties attentions, all for different reasons: the US CIA agents, Steve Irwin sent to relocate an angry croc to another river system and an angry farmer, Brozzie Drewitt (Magda Szubanski) on a personal quest to get the croc responsible for eating her cattle!
Wow! What an explosive adventure unfolds, both comical (with the US CIA agents out of their depth in the Aussie outback terrain) to the real life work of the Irwins (these are not stunts). The combination of a fictional story with the interaction of the wild animals in their native environment really works well and Steve Irwin has enormous screen presence with an electric, charismatic personality that really captures and inspires the audience. His enthusiasm effervesces off the screen and the audience absorbs the bubbles.
THE CROCODILE HUNTER: COLLISION COURSE is certainly a movie that will appeal to all ages from youngsters to adults and also it gives a totally unique educational angle to the film. The no-holds-bar approach to the danger these wild animals hold for humans is equally balanced by the Irwins’ determination to protect them from the ever-encroaching threat to their existence by man.
