Must See Movie...

Brilliant and touching

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, and his wife Terri work to save the animals of the Australian outback. An US satellite beacon has fallen out of the sky and landed in Australia. It gets swallowed by a crocodile. CIA agents are sent to retrieve it. American agent Jo Buckley is also sent to get the beacon to use in inter-agency politics. Cattle station owner Brozzie Drewitt is also looking the kill the croc on her lands. Australian Government Fisheries worker Sam Flynn tries to relocate the croc by hiring the Irwins before Brozzie shoots it.Steve Irwin has an infectious charm. His act is great. There is a natural magnetism about him. Sadly, this movie decides to tie him to this silly international spy stuff. Then the movie adds the terribly broad Magda Szubanski. The whole thing is schizophrenic. I'm perfectly happy to watch Steve wrestle a crocodile. Somebody needs to make a good movie around him. This is not that movie.

Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002): Dir: John Stainton / Cast: Steve Irwin, Terri Irwin, Magda Szubanski, Neil Fanning, Bindi Irwin: Feature film based upon the Animal Planet T.V. show hosted by Steve Irwin whose enthusiasm in preserving wildlife began at age nine when he assisted his father in catching and relocating crocodiles. It is a collision course when two factors collide. Simple plot regards government agents who travel to Australia to retrieve a top secret surveillance beacon swallowed by a crocodile. Steve and his wife Terri locate and capture the crocodile when he becomes a threat to locals but they mistake the agents as poachers and conflict follows. Story is tailored to Steve's wild antics but director John Stainton does a clever two-in-one with Steve educating viewers within the mindless action. Steve and Terri Irwin are enthusiastic playing themselves, and they are solid in their educational and entertaining take on this project. Supporting roles are not so complimentary. Magda Szubanski plays a ranch owner who shows up periodically. Besides her there is thugs who overact horribly and play a major hand in sabotaging the film. Steve and Terri's daughter Bindi appears briefly. Perhaps a heavy flaw here is the film's point in making Steve Irwin into an action hero but at least it isn't without his grand sense of humour and knowledge of wildlife. "Crikey!" Score: 4 / 10

SE's 2020 Data Recorder from a satellite that exploded in space (inside a metal beacon) heads towards Earth. Landing in Northern Queensland, of Australia, two CIA agents are sent to retrieve it. Meanwhile Steve Irwin (May he rest in peace) takes the time to talk with us about various creatures in Australia (crocs, snakes, kangaroos, spiders, etc.). Collision Course was criticized for the imbalance that exists in terms of the beacon's recovery and Irwin's Crocodile Hunter television show host presentation. While Irwin's show was of definite interest to me (and popular with viewers on Animal Planet) during its run prior to his unfortunate death, whether or not it is worth a cinematic film with an ongoing story arc surrounding him is up for debate. Included with the CIA agents and the Aussie local assigned to assist them on the hunt for a beacon is a disgruntled local farmer, enraged with crocs eating her cattle and remaining close to her land (the wildlife/fisheries expert tries to encourage her to stop being so difficult and allow him to relocate the croc(s) in the vicinity, but she isn't interested). Irwin and his wife, Terri, are the ones called to relocate the croc elsewhere.Irwin's infectious enthusiasm is appealing/endearing, and his wife, the "straight man" to his act, offers some information herself, confirming to us that they were a wonderful team. Rozzie, the farmer hunting the croc, is used as comic relief mostly, while the agents on trail of the beacon are a boring lot (this subplot has little inspiration to it). The beacon is located in the belly of a croc, and so the story lines might eventually converge. Irwin's addressing the camera at all times, even when action involves the agents (eventually the Aussie female agent turns on them, wanting to retrieve the beacon herself), could be considered ill-advised (to be cinematic, you'd think those involved would want to shy away from resembling the television show too much). Irwin, action hero, is a bit odd, especially when looking at the camera while a chase scene happens, or disallowing and preventing violence towards the croc (it eventually craps out the beacon) by using a snake and rope to stop them.I think fans of Irwin can get the goods shown in the film on his show (plus more), in reruns or renting them, with Collision Course taking highlights and implanting them within a blah story that services only as a diversion from what most care about…Irwin's interaction with species and his knowledge about them shared with us. Standing on top of his jeep and fending off an agent seems surreal, particularly when Irwin tells us that these blokes are really dangerous and could be poachers wanting the croc they are transporting to a safer environment (a different river on the other side of a mountain). Probably the best part of the film is Irwin and Terri securing a dangerously aggressive (and seriously angry) croc; it's a real large croc, too, and the capture/roping process looks positively scary and exhausting. I think what this film does is remind us of what the world has lost: a man who joyfully presented his love of creatures great and small, and did so with an aplomb and care for all life that continues to live on even if he himself has sadly been taken from us.

I never was an avid viewer of "Crocodile Hunter", but did occasionally see an episode, or a bit of an episode, and when the news spread about Steve Irwin's death from a stingray attack in 2006, it certainly caught my attention. This movie, with Steve and his wife, Terri, playing themselves, but in a fictional story, was released in 2002, but I didn't hear of it until several years later, and even after that, it took me a while to get around to seeing it. Well, now I have seen it, and after looking here first (more than once), and seeing its rating, I was not surprised at how unimpressive it turned out to be, though it could have been a BIT better. Apparently, it's supposed to be a comedy, so a major problem with it is that it isn't very funny at all.A U.S. satellite beacon falls down from space and lands in Australia, where it is swallowed by a crocodile! While Steve and Terri Irwin are on a mission to capture this crocodile from a place where it terrorizes the cattle on a ranch owned by the crazy Brozzie Drewitt, and are unaware of what's inside it, two CIA agents are sent to Australia to retrieve the beacon! The agents are assisted by Jo Buckley, and the ranch owner and her dogs might make the mission more difficult for them! On Steve and Terri's mission, they face other types of dangerous wildlife, not just the crocodile, and since they have no clue that the croc has anything unusual inside it, when Steve sees the CIA agents after them, he mistakes them for poachers! Not only did I not laugh once while watching this film, the only part that really made me smile was Steve Irwin using a big snake to scare off one of the CIA agents. Apart from that, I don't think I found anything even mildly amusing. It's also a bit of an incoherent mess, switching back and forth from the Australian Outback to the CIA headquarters, and it seems like clips from "Crocodile Hunter" and clips from an action thriller (or something like that) put together for some reason. Also added to that mix are the ranch scenes, which also seem to be from somewhere else, and as funny as Brozzie Drewitt, played by Magda Szubanski, is supposed to be, she's not. At one point, we see her farting, so we have a fart joke, a MAJOR cliché in modern comedy! Are they SO hard to resist?! I also found the typical "Crocodile Hunter" scenes, with Steve wrestling crocodiles and holding other dangerous creatures and talking about them to viewers, to be tedious, but I guess the fact that I was never a devout fan of the show didn't help.Steve Irwin was admired by many as a conservationist, and is sadly missed by them, while there are also those who say he messed with nature and had it coming to him. No matter which side you're on, "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course" is not a well crafted movie. I'm sure it does help if you're a big Steve Irwin fan, but even if you are, there's no guarantee that you would like this movie, as some fans clearly haven't been impressed. In fact, it seems that some of them have found this movie to be worse than I have, so maybe it WON'T help. Like I said, there's no guarantee. I would say whatever you may think of Steve Irwin and his show, this movie was unnecessary. The attempt to combine what is usually seen in "Crocodile Hunter" with a fictional story unfortunately failed, and a viewer may find that this film seems longer than ninety minutes!