El cazacocodrilos

Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter plays - well - Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter in a fun adventure type movie with little in the way of a believable story line but lots of information about Australia's crocodiles and venomous snakes and spiders.

The story - such as it is - revolves around some sort of U.S. satellite equipment that somehow finds it way to Australia after surviving its drop to earth from orbit, and is promptly swallowed by a monstrously large crocodile. Irwin sets out to find the crocodile and move it to safer territory, believing that it's being stalked not by CIA agents trying to get this thing back, but by poachers.

Forget the story. It's secondary - and, to be blunt, not that great. Basically, this movie serves as an ad for Irwin's "The Crocodile Hunter" TV series, and most of it is shot as if he were taping the show, as he fights crocs and plays with various and sundry poisonous and dangerous animals in his usual animated way. You have to give the guy credit - he's got his part down pat!

There's a simple way of knowing whether you'll like this movie or not. If you like "The Crocodile Hunter" you'll like the movie. If you don't, you won't. See how simple that is! I like "The Crocodile Hunter" and I think Irwin is quite hilarious. Strangely, though, for all the fun and laughs involved here the movie seemed to go on longer than its allotted 90 minutes. Perhaps Irwin is better in half hour segments. After that he may begin to get a bit overwhelming.

But it is fun. I'd give it a 7/10, knowing full well that this movie will get its share of bashers as well.

With much apprehension, I decided to watch this movie. To say the least, one could see how low budget the film was, but it's not something that detracts from the movie. Overall, it felt like some National Geographic documentary spliced with an actual movie. While the different aspect ratios of the digital film and the celluloid was a little annoying, it didn't take too much away from the film. Steve Irwin, despite all of his goofiness and weirdness, is quite a person to admire considering he tries to teach, speak about conservation, and defy death (much of the time) all in one sound bite. Sometimes corny, most of the time breathtaking (due to Irwin's animal interaction), this film is worth taking your kids to. A guiltless pleasure to watch.

From the trailer, it seemed that this movie was (1) a comedy, and (2) had some kind of plot. But upon watching it, you see it isn't so. For one thing, the first half of the movie seems to forget it's supposed to be a comedy! Sure, Steve is doing his usual thing, but you can easily see that on any episode of his TV show. I was expecting that Steve (playing himself) would be encountering situations not found on his TV show, and his reaction to these events would provide the comedy. Nope; the first half of the movie plays (for the most part) like an expanded episode of his show.

The second half of the movie is an improvement, though not by much. There are some attempts at that kind of situation humor, though for some reason it only comes across as mildly amusing at the most. Oh, the plot? Well, just like the first half of the movie, there is barely ANYTHING that can be called a plot, including the ending, which is a real cheat.

As bad as the movie is, none of it is Steve's fault; he was clearly up to anything the production told him to do. It's too bad that pretty much all the movie gave him to perform was dreck.

I'm glad I waited for this movie to come out on DVD because I don't think I would have appreciated it without seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff. Steve and Teri Irwin are fantastic. They are funny, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and truly care about ecology and conservation. But they're not actors; and they know this. My advice to the reluctant renter is this: get the DVD, watch the movie and try not to pay too much attention to the CIA plot. The real fun is watching Steve and Teri "muck it up" with all sorts of deadly creatures. And what makes this even better is that all of the animals are real and it's all Steve and Teri doing the stunts. After the movie, make sure to watch all of the behind the scenes extras. Like how Steve and his long time zoo colleague Wes organized and rehearsed the King Brown snake scene. And how they trained the crocs to attack Steve on cue. There's one take that actually made me jump in my chair, just knowing the real danger that Steve and Wes had to face to get a short scene in. I won't say which one, you'll have to watch them all.

I wasn't sure how they would fit him in, whether it would be some cliched "turn him into a spy" theme or a lame "pet detective" theme. Instead they had the Irwins doing their Discovery thing while the whole spy thing went on without them. They eventually came together in a clever and believable way. In fact, the Irwins never really found out what was really going on.

The "bad guys" weren't the usual bumbling idiots that you find in these kinds of movies, and I appreciated that. Their failings were more due to circumstance and unpreparedness.

There are some very funny scenes here. My 7 year old son and his friend were riveted, and laughing throughout most of it. Nice to know that they can still make non-animated G-rated movies without talking animals and silly gags and fart jokes (ok there was one), and it's still fun and funny.

However, my wife was jumping in her seat. The animal scenes were live and unpredictable, like the Irwins' TV show. When a snake or spider or croc jumped at our hero, my wife jumped too.

The conservation theme is pretty heavy throughout the Irwins' subplot, but since they were just doing their thing it was fine. Besides, people need constant reminders of how badly we are screwing up our planet. The only thing that bugged me was what always bugs me about documentaries -- where is the cameraman they keep talking to? Where does he sit? How does he get around? Anyway, minor quibble.

The whole movie reminded me of The Gods Must Be Crazy, but with more polish. If you are an Irwin fan, you will like this movie. I'm not, particularly, although I do watch his show sometimes. Still, I really enjoyed this movie, and so did my family.

Highly recommended for fans and families.