Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
**
Cinema Releases - July 26, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate PG.
USA-Australia. 90 minutes. Directed by John Stainton. Written by Holly Goldberg
Sloan; from a story by John Stainton. Starring Steve Irwin, Terri Irwin,
Magda Szubanski, David Wenham, Lachy Hulme, Aden Young, Kenneth
Ransom.
Steve Irwin is one crazy bastard. His eyes bulge
and his voice bellows, and he shouts, "Crikey, mate!" while looking into
a camera, wrestling crocodiles and playing with fatal spiders. Snakes swish
around his face as he announces, "This mucker's got enough venom in one bite
to kill a hundred blokes my size!"
Conceptually, "Crocodile Hunter: Collision
Course" is the year's ultimate animal flick. Forget sitting through
the stolidity of "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" or the crass cuteness
of "Stuart Little 2". This one has balls.
Irwin, a real-life croc chaser and zookeeper,
is fun to watch on the Discovery Channel, but the format of a feature film
creates a certain unfortunate distance. The guy is admirable and likeable,
and I'm sure he really is doing all those stunts, take after take. But on
the big screen he seems less arresting than up in our faces. Anyway, what's
the point? Why should Irwin star in a film in which he pretends to be on
TV, when we can already see him on real TV? Why should he put himself in
genuine danger for a film in which he is in fictional danger? And what exactly
are the logistics of the situation supposed to be, when Irwin talks into
a camera but no cameraman character is actually present?
The screenplay cuts between Irwin showing us how
he deals with different types of animals and a CIA duo tracking vital satellite
debris that has been eaten by a crocodile. In between the mud wrestling,
there are cuts to Washington, D.C. and Langley, Virginia, where generals
and other men in suits discuss whether or not Irwin and his wife Terri are
enemy spies. The field agents themselves, played by Aden Young and Kenneth
Ransom, basically just bicker, fall over and get in slapstick situations
with a crazy old lady wielding a shotgun (Magda Szubanski).
It's bad enough that Irwin's scenes don't work
in context, worse that "Collision Course" feels the need to be an exercise
in cutting between three subplots. The shotgun lady and the CIA stuff are
tacked on; the film has moments that make us smile, but mostly feels choppy,
drained of momentum and endless.
I feel like a churl for being disappointed, as
"Crocodile Hunter" has been getting good reviews in the States. Then again,
Americans are pretty easily wowed by Aussies, and I can picture them chortling
at the eccentricity of it all every time an outback creature moves or a native
shouts, "Rack off!" Oh well, if they're having fun, good for
them.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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