(Herald rating: * *)
Further evidence, if any was needed, that Australia was never designed or intended for human habitation. This is an hour-and-a-half of Steve Irwin, the larger-than-life hero of his own world-franchised TV series, Australia Zoo and wife's promotional abilities, doing what he does best. Well, doing what he
does, full stop: wrestling with crocodiles, with snakes, sparring with spiders.
So far as there is a story, it involves Steve and his wife, Terri, being called in to shift a large croc which is a bit of a nuisance for a local rancher, Brozzie Drewett (Magda Szubanski). Steve and Terri tick off the first part of the project and head off downstream to a place where the crocodile can live in peace.
Unfortunately, the Irwins do not know that the critter has swallowed a beacon from a
top-secret US satellite which crashed to Earth a few days before they were called in, and the CIA has sent its top agents — Bob Wheeler (Lachy Hulme) and Vaughn Archer (Kenneth Ransom) to the Sunshine State to get it back.
Naturally, Steve and Terri won't give up their scaly, toothy mate without a fight; just as naturally in this kind of movie, there's another agent on their tail ... or trail.
One for kids, big and small, who love the show and the showman, with plenty of extras on the DVD.
DVD features: movie (92min); Croc Track: film with subtitles providing info about the beasts; behind-the-scenes features with a lot of large beasts needing serious dental work; advice on how to handle the highly venomous King Brown snake should you meet one in Mt Roskill (which, given our present record of importing foreign critters, may come in handy some day); and lots of nice, smiley pics of the Irwin family.
