The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course

This topic contains:

• details about The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course’s classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 9 September 2002.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may disturb young children
• nudity, sexual references, substance use, coarse language
• the movie’s message
• overall comments.

Synopsis of the story

A dangerous crocodile is causing havoc on a local farmer’s property, attacking her calves and threatening her livelihood. Brozzie is a tough, unfriendly farmer who is determined to rid the river of the crocodile and sets out to shoot it. The local ranger tries in vain to deter Brozzie and so decides to call in the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin and his wife Terri to relocate the croc.

Meanwhile a US spy plane explodes somewhere over Queensland dropping a satellite beacon containing highly sensitive data. US agents are dispatched to Australia to retrieve the beacon which they trace to Brozzie’s property.

Relocating the aggressive croc is a very dangerous mission for the Irwins and proves to be no easy task. They eventually manage to get the croc onto the boat and set off to relocate the animal.

The US agents discover that the Irwins are in the locality of where the device is and decide that they must be spies. The chase is on as the US agents as well as their rival Australian counterparts, track down the Irwins. The ensuing result is quite funny with the Irwins totally unaware of all that is going on. They believe their pursuers to be poachers after the croc. The beacon is finally discovered when it is ‘passed’ by the croc who had of course, swallowed it. Steve has no idea what it is and uses it as a ball. All ends well however, as the croc gets moved to a new river system and the Americans get their beacon back.

Use of violence

There is some violence in this film including:

• Brozzie shooting at the crocodile
• a female Australian agent drops explosives from an ultra light plane onto a boat containing US agents, destroying the boat although the men escape.
• an agent also drops explosives onto the Irwins’ boat but misses. Steve lassoes the plane and drags it into the water.
• an agent also blows up Brozzie’s shed and a man is left injured on the road.

Material that may disturb young children

Under sevens

There is quite a bit of scary material in this movie including:

• Steve wrestling with crocodiles
• Steve picking up most venomous snake in the world and being nearly bitten by it
• dogs chase the ranger and growl aggressively
• a dead kangaroo is shown lying on the road
• Steve provokes a bird-eating spider to make it get into ambush position
• Brozzie falls from her tree perch into the river and is chased by the crocodile
• crocodile aggressively snaps at Brozzie
• Steve trying to capture the large crocodile—it snaps at the boat very aggressively; Steve lassoes it and it pulls Steve into the water. Stays under water for quite some time. Steve eventually gets back into the boat and the crocodile pulls him into the water again. He wrestles with the croc; this scene is very dramatic.
• the dogs guarding the US agents are very aggressive
• the bird-eating spider gets out of its container and climbs onto Terri’s leg and up her body onto her face.

Eight to twelve

The scenes with the crocodiles and the snakes display very real danger and Steve Irwin puts himself into very dangerous situations. This could scare older children.

Nudity, sexual references, substance use, coarse language

There is very little sexual reference, no nudity or sexual activity, no substance use and very few instances of coarse language.

There is some humour that may appeal more to children than adults, such as:

• Steve smells and examines goanna poo then puts it in his pocket for further research.
• Brozzie ‘lets off’ with a loud noise apparently causing the explosion of the shed.
• Steve explains how, after mating, the female bird-eating spiders eat the male. He then digs up a half eaten male spider to prove the point.
• Steve examines the crocodile’s poo and discovers the beacon. He then wipes the poo off on his shirt.

The movie’s message

This is a conservation movie and the main message that Steve gets across with much enthusiasm is that animals belong in their environment and should be left alone in order to maintain the fine web of life.

Overall comments

This is a highly entertaining film that adults and older children would enjoy. Steve Irwin is passionate about protecting endangered creatures and conveys this in a very funny way. The film is unusual in that it is part documentary, part story. The storyline is fairly weak and seems to be thrown in to give the film some basis. Watching Steve wrestle with the crocs is really quite scary as the danger is very real. Younger people might not realise this however and think that it is staged. Also one would hope that older children would not be tempted to copy his example in handling snakes even though he warns people to never do so.