CROCODILE HUNTER

REVIEWED BY BRETT WILLIS

Our rating: 4 out of 5

Because of: thematic elements, violence

Rated:

This film, aimed at family audiences, is a situation action/comedy built around Steve and Terri Irwin of TV’s The Crocodile Hunter apparently doing an episode of their show (the sides of the picture narrow to TV format in those scenes) and government agents doing what they do best in a comedy, namely bumbling the job. A top-secret satellite has deviated from orbit and automatically self-destructed; but its “black box” full of spy photos, which is built to withstand the heat of re-entry, has fallen into the Australian outback and must be recovered. There’s an inter-agency quarrel over jurisdiction; a CIA bureaucrat sends in Agents Archer and Wheeler, while his opposite number at the National Reconnaissance Office sends in female Agent Buckley to pose as an Aussie local, thwart their search and beat them to the punch.

The spy device – which looks like a large top, maybe six inches in diameter – has been swallowed by a huge, cattle-eating crocodile which Steve and Terri have been called in to relocate. So we have the rancher Ms. Drewitt threatening the croc, any trespassers and even a ranger with both her shotgun and her attack dogs; agents working with, but really against, each other; the Irwins mistaking the agents for poachers; and the CIA mistaking the Irwins for agents. Confused? No matter, the plot isn’t supposed to be serious. All the scary stuff found on the Croc Hunter TV show is here as well: the Irwins handle crocs, venomous snakes and a large, poisonous spider. In addition, there are several violent acts played for comedy: attack dogs, a poisonous snake, firearms and dynamite are used by some characters as weapons against other people. There’s a lot of scary background music, including something that sounds like the theme from the old Mission: Impossible TV series.

More than enough gratuitous material has been inserted to assure a PG rating. There are about a half-dozen uses of hell and d*mn, and some references to private parts. Steve pats Terri on the behind. Terri and Agent Buckley both show cleavage (Terri wraps an orphaned kangaroo joey in her shirt; why couldn’t Steve have offered his shirt?). The attack dogs maul the ranger’s hat, and one dog then urinates on it. Steve picks the spy device out of a heap of croc dung and nonchalantly cleans it off by wiping the dung on his shirt. Ms. Drewitt, who is overweight, is locked in her bathroom by one of the agents, and she makes flatus sounds while trying unsuccessfully to squeeze out the window.

Is this film worth seeing for children and families? Setting aside the real-life scariness of handling dangerous wild animals, the rest of the objectionable material is small compared to the average film. The “bad guys” are deliberately underplayed so as not to scare kids too much; they really do try to kill people, but they’re not very good at it. Steve has extended interplay with the crocs; there’s even a lengthy underwater croc-wrestling sequence that reminds one of the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies, minus the knifing at the end of course. If kids are already fans of the Irwins, they’ll probably want to see this film. And they could do better, but they could also do a lot worse.