All the reviews I've been seeing of this film keep talking about how silly it is. Actually, it's a well-constructed, well-written and highly original approach to making a feature film geared to please "Crocodile Hunter" fans as well as delivering a strictly earnest message about what the Irwins are truly all about. Though in tone and style it can be compared to nothing else so much as a really big-budget special episode of one of the "Crocodile Hunter" TV programs (as befits a film created by the Croc Hunter TV team), in concept the films it reminds me of most are "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help," also films that successfully married a satisfying depiction of a real-life media phenomenon with an amusing and stylish fictional framework.
The through-line is a semifictional depiction of a day in the life of the Croc Hunter and company, illustrating the various things that they actually do for a living. This includes on-camera animal demonstrations (Steve chasing a gowana and pointing out what its "poo" tells about the animal's habits and status in the ecosystem), wildlife rescue (scooping a fear snake off the road so it won't get squished, saving an orphaned kangaroo joey), providing specimens for science and medicine (snagging a bird-eating spider to milk for antivenom), and providing humane solutions to human-animal conflicts (capturing and relocating a crocodile who's been attacking a rancher's calves.) The wholly fictional subplot, with its absolutely dead-on parody of an American action-technothriller (this is a film with a wryly Australian viewpoint--the top American agent is a humorless, oversexed nerd obsessed with his gun) provides the title's "collision course" with the Irwin's mission to save endangered wildlife, which is anything but inconsequential to the film's overall message. No synthetic "adventure" that Hollywood can dream up is more exciting than the truly fun and absorbing spectacle of Stevo capturing, admiring and saving his beloved animals. It's a message all Croc Hunter fans can agree with--it really is a thrill to see Steve interacting with a big spider or croc or snake on the big screen, something that wouldn't come through on the little screen.
The through-line is a semifictional depiction of a day in the life of the Croc Hunter and company, illustrating the various things that they actually do for a living. This includes on-camera animal demonstrations (Steve chasing a gowana and pointing out what its "poo" tells about the animal's habits and status in the ecosystem), wildlife rescue (scooping a fear snake off the road so it won't get squished, saving an orphaned kangaroo joey), providing specimens for science and medicine (snagging a bird-eating spider to milk for antivenom), and providing humane solutions to human-animal conflicts (capturing and relocating a crocodile who's been attacking a rancher's calves.) The wholly fictional subplot, with its absolutely dead-on parody of an American action-technothriller (this is a film with a wryly Australian viewpoint--the top American agent is a humorless, oversexed nerd obsessed with his gun) provides the title's "collision course" with the Irwin's mission to save endangered wildlife, which is anything but inconsequential to the film's overall message. No synthetic "adventure" that Hollywood can dream up is more exciting than the truly fun and absorbing spectacle of Stevo capturing, admiring and saving his beloved animals. It's a message all Croc Hunter fans can agree with--it really is a thrill to see Steve interacting with a big spider or croc or snake on the big screen, something that wouldn't come through on the little screen.