Crikey! It’s a Steve Irwin movie!

The plot of this opus involves Steve and his wife Terri trying to save a croc from being poached. In fact, the croc has swallowed a satellite tracking beacon that contains very sensitive information and the ‘poachers’ are CIA agents.

I love crazy crossover movies. I remember the first time I watched a Steve Irwin wildlife documentary. I didn’t know if I loved or hated him. Thanks to the emergence of cable TV at that time, Irwin’s boundlessly energetic TV programmes went global and he built up a sizeable following worldwide. And where there’s popularity, there’s movie moguls thinking, ‘How can we make this into a film that makes millions?!’

The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course has the best of both worlds. There’s a storyline that loosely qualifies it as a film and there’s plenty of what made Irwin famous- dashing after various deadly animals and saying ‘Crikey!’ into the camera. It’s hard to deny Irwin’s charisma or likeability.

This film had a budget of $12m and grossed $33.4m at the box office. That’s quite the two fingers to the naysayers. Magda Szubanski (Sharon from Kath and Kim) and Steve Bastoni (seen in LOADS of Aussie stuff and very easy on the eye) also star.

I remember an interviewer asking Irwin if he wore a suit to the production meetings for the film. Irwin laughed and said he only ever wears his khakis. What you see is what you get which made me respect him even more.

2.5 out of 5 stars