The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course... Hey kids it's a Faces of Death Prequel

Before I post the review a quick word. This review of mine was first published May 20th 2005 a full year before Steve Irwin's tragic death. As you can see from the unfortunate original headline above as well as the review below I have decided to leave unedited those references to Mr. Irwin’s lifestyle choice that, in retrospect, may seem insensitive.

This is a problem with writing on the internet in general and writing about real people in particular. For example I have a half finished Sex and The City review sitting in my Microsoft Word at the moment. Now had I not been lazy and easily distracted by shiny objects I would have had some not so nice things to say about Jennifer Hudson's Magic Negro role in the film. But considering the recent tragedy involving her family, those criticisms will go unsaid when I finish the review. In fact they may go unsaid by most of us for years to come.

We censor ourselves both because of our own decency but also out of a concern what others may think of us. One of the hardest things is dealing with statements from the past (In black and white and cached by Google) is that statements which seem at the time facetious, snarky or witty now come across as cruel, ugly and insensitive.

Our little epigrammatic bon mots can come back to haunt us.

Well enough backpedaling on with the appalling review.

The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course: 5 out of 10: Okay first a 20 word review of the movie.



The film is okay if you like the Crocodile Hunter and you have no business seeing it if you don't.



And that’s the film in a nutshell. The DVD extras however are brilliant.



For example the DVD extras show, over years mind you, Steve Irwin and his misses Terri training their star crocodiles to attack a boat without eating the cast. Needless to say the training doesn't really work. (Steve gets hurt a bit “off camera”)



So we have wonderful footage of a barely mobile Steve complete with a knee bandage almost being chomped by a couple of over sized crocs that are some naughty Shielas indeed. Now all lot of this footage makes the movie proper gussied up for whatever plot point is at hand. But it is the raw footage that shows how no CGI or mechanical crocs were used. It also covers the endless training to get the crocs to hang out on a set with cameras rolling and not eat half the crew.



The crocs successfully, after a while, do ignore the cameras and lights but never their chief tormentor Steve. The crocs act all calm then as soon as action is shouted they go for Steve's jugular like they were starring in a Faces of Death video. The amount of work involved for such a relatively lightweight film is rather awe inspiring.



The film itself is rather simple. Both Steve and his wife find various Australian wildlife, each more deadly than the last. Wildlife tries to kill Steve. Steve yells crikey. There is also an easily ignorable plot about the CIA or something that makes Kangaroo Jack look like a Charlie Kaufman film.



And a warning to impressionable baby boomers, there is a desecration of Elton John's Crocodile Rock by the Baha Men. The DVD even includes a horrible video of same in case you capture some terrorists and need them to talk quick.




One last note. For no discernible reason the aspect ratio changes when Steve is on screen and when Steve is off screen. So if you're like me and A: You weren't paying enough attention before the film. B: You have a wide screen television. C: Your remote is an all in one affair that could land a Space Shuttle and has become a sentient being. Well needless to say according to witnesses my attempts to "correct" this were pretty funny to watch.









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