Crocodile Schlock

Steve Irwin's fun, but his ill-conceived new movie isn't much.

If the BBC's esteemed David Attenborough is the Kurt Loder of nature documentaries, then "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin must be Johnny Knoxville. Frequently eschewing tranquilizer darts or any other safety equipment, the man apparently prefers to wrestle large reptiles with abandon and twirl poisonous snakes around by the tail as they flail around trying to bite him in the crotch -- it's no wonder he's the first nature show host to get his own action figure line. Though he is a deadly serious conservationist and environmentalist whose parents founded the Australia Zoo, Irwin is often perceived as a figure of fun and not just a little masochistic/insane, and it's tough to shake the image of his caricature on South Park creeping up behind a rattlesnake and loudly proclaiming "Oi'm gonna jam me finger in his butthole!"

A big-screen bow was inevitable, especially after Irwin proved he could act in FedEx commercials and a teaser trailer for Dr. Dolittle 2. He's an inherently likable guy with a positive message and inoffensive sense of humor, not to mention numerous disclaimers that kids at home should not stick their fingers into tarantula nests. Heck, he's even donating his entire salary from the film to conservation efforts, so it seems a shame to dismiss his movie. But dismiss it we shall -- the man deserves a better vehicle than this.

At the beginning of The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, a U.S. satellite goes awry and mostly burns up in the atmosphere, save for a small, indestructible data core loaded with CIA spy data. The spinning top-like metal object splashes down in the outback, where it is promptly swallowed by a crocodile. In a quick series of boring scenes shot with wooden actors on sets that Roger Corman wouldn't even use, various CIA agents are dispatched to go undercover to Australia and fetch it. There are various feuding factions within the CIA, it seems, but the film doesn't really care about that, and neither should you. All that's really key to the story is that the crocodile in question periodically snacks on the livestock of obnoxious, fat farmer Brozzie (Babe's Magda Szubanski), and Irwin, along with wife Terri and dog Sui, is dispatched to remove the croc before it tastes shotgun lead, or Brozzie.

Right off the bat, director John Stainton, who created Irwin's Crocodile Hunter TV series but has never directed a film before, makes a curious choice. He shoots all the CIA scenes in widescreen, and Irwin's scenes in TV aspect ratio. At first, it seems as though that's because Irwin is supposedly shooting his documentary show as the action unfolds, but later it becomes clear that, no, there is no documentary crew around within the film's reality -- Irwin's simply talking to the camera, a tactic that becomes downright weird when he does so in the middle of a fistfight with a CIA guy.

Another choice by Stainton, as laid out in the movie's press kit, was to deliberately make all the supporting cast "be like cardboard cut-out characters so the audience had no other focus but on Steve and Terri." A lot of action movies do the same, but it's usually not a deliberate choice, and certainly shouldn't be. News flash, John: A compelling hero needs an equally compelling antagonist. Also, if Steve's truly charismatic, and his worldwide fame would indicate that indeed he is, there's no need to worry about him being upstaged. There is a need to worry about scenes not featuring Steve if you've consciously decided not to care about any of the characters in those scenes. A crash-course in narrative filmmaking, or even a simple listen to a few DVD commentary tracks, would've served Stainton well.

Irwin should perhaps have imitated the real Johnny Knoxville, whose forthcoming Jackass: The Movie simply features crazy stunts either cut from MTV by standards and practices, or staged on a grander scale. The montage of Crocodile Hunter TV scenes that runs over the end credits of Collision Course (as the Baha Men sing a cover of "Crocodile Rock") is the funnest thing in the movie. There are plenty of enjoyable moments, none of which have to do with the so-called story -- Irwin improvised much of his own material, and the scenes in which he handles deadly animals for the cameras are real. But why pay for these when you can see them for free on TV? Collision Course will likely turn a profit -- it looks like it cost maybe $100 above the series' regular budget to make. The next time Irwin wants to make a feature, however, he should find a director who knows how.