The Crocodile Hunter A.K.A Steve Irwin holds a dear place in many of our hearts. He may have been your first introduction to the amazing creatures nature has to offer. Also, watching him wrestle 15ft crocodiles was like catnip to any little boy. While growing up I loved The Crocodile Hunter and specifically his movie, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002). The mix of zany antics mixed with a nature documentary filled my little heart with joy. It is for that reason 14 years later I rewatched this movie, but in doing so i realized very quickly I remembered every second of it. Basically, there’s an evil crocodile who ate government tech, and Steve, the government, and a farmer are after it. Now I could tell you my thoughts, but that would be boring, but I just so happened to be watching this masterpiece with my girlfriend. She was too busy with her own assignment to provide regular comments, but it is from the comments she did provide that I will review this movie.
“Snakes move weird, like why don’t they just have legs” – She makes a good point, but Steve Irwin has an answer. At many points in the movie, there are scenes of Steve capturing snakes and holding them for the cameras to see. This illustrates the impeccable wildlife monologues that Steve undertakes. If you’ve ever wanted to see a man holding up the most venomous snake in Australia, an animal with no legs, this is your movie.
“I like that it’s anti-American” – The movie needs some type of plot… so naturally they choose a spy thriller to cut to in between Steve catching animals. Although, they depict the CIA as a group of bumbling idiots in a foreign land. They are shown as trigger happy, ignorant, uneducated… you know what the movie might have depicted the CIA accurately.
“The boobs are unnecessary” – There is some cleavage in this movie. Terri, Steve’s wife, takes off her shirt to place a baby kangaroo into it, one of the side effects though is there is cleavage. The one smart CIA agent is wearing a low-cut tank top throughout the whole movie, why? Because she’s the hot side character. I agree they are unnecessary, but much like any PG-13 movie from the 80’s, they are there.
“He is crazy, he thinks he’s on tv” – This refers to the fact that Steve and Terri are seen talking directly to the camera throughout the entire film. The thing is, in the CIA scenes there is no mention of the camera. This creates a conflict of perspective in the movie, that the movie’s solution to is changing the aspect ratio whenever Steve is in the frame. It does create a sense that you are watching a mad man wrestle crocodiles speaking and to the trees. Which is a sense, you are.
“He looks like an idiot when he runs into the water” – Steve falls and runs into the water… a lot. But most of the time he’s falling into the water to literally wrestle a crocodile… so imma give him a pass on that critique.
“That looks absolutely nothing like George Bush” – George W. Bush shows up at the end of the movie. Yes, that George Bush, president of the United States. He shows up looking like they found a studio intern, stuck the most powdered wig on him that you’ve ever seen, and had him improve Crocodile Hunter related lines. I will say that it was unnecessary to the plot, but if you got an intern who looks like Bush, why not use him.
Do I recommend this movie, yes. , would my girlfriend recommend this movie, no; but Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars so it is objectively great. The End
Categories: oct. 12, owen carpenter, review, samantha stillman, vol 25