DATE REVIEWED: 5/22/25
TITLE: The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2002 MGM / Best Picture Show Company / Cheyenne Enterprises / 20th Century Fox
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This movie began at a secret US government base in the Mojave Desert, where the SE-2020 satellite malfunctioned in outer space so the base in Canberra, Australia, was alerted. The satellite drifted out of orbit and exploded over Queensland, and the black box beacon broke off and crashed into the Australian desert and was swallowed by a crocodile. The Alpha-Proton beacon was created for a Mars mission and contained images from all over the world on its hard drive, and if in the wrong hands, had the capability to destroy the system of the modern world if the wrong people got ahold of it. At the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, agents Robert Wheeler and Vaughn Archer were assigned to find and retrieve the lost satellite black box in Australia. Their one contact would know nothing about their mission and they would use the Red River mining operation as their cover. Meanwhile, Steve and Terri Irwin, a husband and wife team of adventurers from the Australian Zoo, headed out into the desert with their dog, Sui, in search of reptiles. Sui had been with Steve for 13 years and well-trained Sui listened to Steve’s every command while croc hunting, otherwise the dog wouldn’t be alive. Steve and Terri failed to catch a lizard in the desert, so they went in search of venomous snakes. Steve caught the deadliest snake in the world that contained enough venom to kill 150,000 rats. He handled the snake one-on-one like his dad taught him since childhood and muck with it without suffering serious injury or death. Steve soothed the snake and declared that he would rather handle a deadly snake like that than many dangerous people he knew. Back in the USA at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, agents Robert Wheeler and Vaughn Archer were assigned to find and retrieve the beacon in Australia. In Australia, Brozzie Drewitt was left caring for her cattle ranch alone in the outback with her pack of vicious dogs after her husband died. Brozzie shot at the crocodile that attacked and killed her cattle. Her neighbors called Sam Flynn from the Fauna and Fisheries Department. He warned Brozzie about breaking the law, which stated that she couldn’t kill the crocs even though the crocs would kill her cattle. Broozie was determined to keep her cattle and property and beloved dogs safe no matter what. She didn’t want Sam hanging around and posted signs threatening to shoot trespassers and sic her vicious dogs on them. Local fishermen complained about being attacked by a dangerous crocodile in another area, so Steve and Terri went to capture the croc and relocate it somewhere else down the river so it would have no more encounters with swimmers and fishermen. Steve had been catching crocodiles by hand with his dad since he was a little boy, so he was an expert croc hunter. He and Terri found the problem croc at night by seeing its eyes flash red in the spotlight. Steve jumped into the black water and wrestled with the croc as Terri, who was less experienced, tried to lasso the jaws of the struggling croc with her husband wrapped around it. They finally got the croc into the boat, and Steve collapsed and celebrated victory by patting his wife Terri on the butt and thanked her for her help. At the USA National Reconnaissance Office, rogue Deputy Director Ansell wanted a promotion and believed he deserved it for his service and was in competition with director Reynolds. Ansell got wind of Wheeler and Archer’s mission, so he sent his a USA agent from his office, an Australian female named Jo Buckley to Queensland to beat the CIA and retrieve the missing black box since she was familiar with the other country and could travel to and from it without question. Wheeler and Archer arrived in Australia and discovered that their contact was Jo, not Joe, and Jo was dressed sexy. The agents knew nothing about Jo being a USA spy from the other department, so they told Jo everything and spoke freely while in her presence. In their travels, Steve and Terri found a dead kangaroo in the roadside, so they moved it to the ditch and then rescued the baby joey that was left behind. Terri wrapped the joey in her shirt to nurse later and she and Steve planned to adopt it and bottle-feed it regularly like a baby until it could be released back into the wild. Sam informed Brozzie that the officials were calling in the Irwins to take care of her croc problem, and Brozzie wasn’t pleased. Steve captured a large bird-eating venomous spider and planned to take it back to the Australian Zoo to test the potency of its venom. Terri said on camera that the female would kill the male after the male and female spiders mated. Steve then pulled the dead husband spider out of the large hole that the female wife had already killed and had been feasting on for days. Sam called Steve and Terri Irwin to Brozzie’s ranch to catch the croc. Brozzie took matters into her own hands and hung a chicken from a tree as bait for the croc near the river. Brozzie fell asleep in the tree and was startled awake when the croc grabbed the chicken. Brozzie hung onto the rope to keep from falling. The rope snapped and Brozzie dropped into the water, but she was able to swim ashore. She was unable to shoot the croc because of water in her gun, and she passed out instead on the shore but the croc left her there and went back into the water. Steve and Terri next captured a deadly King Brown cobra snake that was in the road. It was the most venomous in Australia, and Steve didn’t want to get bit in his private parts. Terri emptied out the entire truck to retrieve the snake catching bag so again Steve had to politely tell her to hurry up so he didn’t get bit. They planned to relocate the King Brown cobra in the mountains away from people. In their Landover, Jo and the other USA agents camped in the outback. They lost transmission to the beacon. They were able to get the signal back and followed it to Brozzie’s property. It seemed to them that the beacon was underwater (in the croc’s stomach). Reynolds went to an embassy meeting while his assistant stayed behind to help out otherwise Reynolds’ absence would expose a possible leak in the department. Steve and Terri went out on the river to search for Brozzie’s croc, which they found when it lunged at Steve who was out of the boat on the riverbank. Terri had difficulty getting the boat started at first to help her husband out, but after a short time Steve was able to get back in safely. Steve finally roped the jaw of the aggressive croc, which managed to jerk Steve into the water and dragged him along. He swam for his life back to the safety of the boat as the croc chased him, as the croc continued towing the boat to the shallows. Steve jumped onto the croc’s back and wrestled with it while Terri, who didn’t have the strength to help Steve too much, struggled to tie the croc’s jaws shut. Steve nearly broke his neck when the croc carried him under the boat so Steve yelled to Terri to help out and get the boat off his neck. Finally, Steve and Terri were able to pull the croc into the boat and restrain it. Jo reported back to Ansell that she would get the black box before the male CIA agents. They searched for the beacon at the river, but then were chased by Brozzie’s dogs. Brozzie woke up and shot at the agents, and the Irwins heard the gunshots too who were also nearby Brozzie’s property. Steve believed that the gunshots were from poachers, so he planned to return to the area after the croc was safely relocated in order to educate people in the “Steve-O” way on how important crocs were to the environment and why they needed to be protected since they weren’t man-eating creatures and how crocs were only aggressive after being terrorized by people. Jo told Brozzie they were with the government and flashed a badge, and Wheeler and Archer also lied that they were the ones sent to catch the croc. Brozzie didn’t believe it since the agents looked like city slickers, so she took Jo to the house with her so Brozzie could call Sam and verify that the agents were who they said they were. The dogs kept watch on Wheeler and Archer, who used a dog whistle (Arctic wolves past mission) on them to hold them at bay and get back to the truck and drive off to follow the beacon’s signal that was now moving away from the area. Reynolds attended a government meeting, where they discussed how the husband and wife duo were suspects after investigating the Irwin’s travel history in the 90’s to 2000 to places such as Indonesia, Timor, South America and Africa and they could be government spies. They had full access to the military at the US Air Force bases in Florida and Arizona, and the agents in Australia reported back and confirmed that the Irwins had the missing SE-2020 satellite black box. The bigwigs didn’t believe the Irwins were just out croc hunting because they announced in 2001 that they were renovating their Australian zoo for $40 million and it was printed in several newspapers worldwide, and they couldn’t earn that money from airing their cable TV zoo show. Back down under, Steve’s dad taught him how to transport crocs successfully in a wooden box crate safely for all involved, so Steve and Terri loaded the crate into their truck and planned to relocate the aggressive creature to the Thomson river system far away from the poachers. Wheeler and Archer then chased the Irwins in their truck, and Steve believed the agents were die-hard poachers and so Steve refused to stop. Trigger-happy Wheeler fired off his gun and Archer rear-ended them with his Land Rover. Wheeler jumped onto the roof of the Irwins’ truck, so Terri took the wheel as Steve climbed out the window. In the process, the container holding the deadly spider popped open and it crawled onto Terri’s face and she flung it on the windshield and swerved the truck in doing so which made Wheeler lose his gun he held on her husband. Steve and Wheeler had a fistfight on the roof until Steve threw Wheeler off and he landed hard in the road. Wheeler kept hold of the rope and was dragged behind the truck, so Steve took out the deadly snake from the back of his truck and held it out to bite Wheeler’s hand who reluctantly let go of the rope. When Wheeler did let go of the rope, Archer ran over Wheeler but Wheeler was between the wheels of the vehicles and appeared not to be hurt. Jo locked Brozzie in the bathroom of her home and then used dynamite to blow up Brozzie’s barn since Brozzie had chains on the door and Jo couldn’t get the door open to get the glider plane out. Jo took off in the stolen Aussie plane then and flew to find the beacon. Steve and Terri unloaded the croc into the boat. Steve then dug through the croc’s poop inside the crate and found the beacon and thought it was a metal toy. He blamed the poachers since crocs couldn’t digest metal. Terri held onto the valuable foreign object that contained the government secret spy information for Steve to study later. Sam arrived at Brozzie’s ranch just as she broke down the bathroom door. She told Sam his department would pay for the replacement of her barn, and then they headed to the river with all her dogs in the back of Sam’s truck. Archer and Wheeler found the Irwin truck by the side of the river, so they investigated. Wheeler found the baby kangaroo left all alone and it was sitting on the front passenger seat still wrapped in a Terri’s shirt. Wheeler then reached in to the driver’s side open window and pulled out the food container next to the baby kangaroo thinking it was food. He was freaked out when the spider emerged so he dropped the container on the ground and shot at the large venomous bird-eating spider as it ran off under the truck. Deputy Director Ansell called from his USA post to check in on Jo. Jo, in the stolen hang glider airborne in Australia updated her boss and promised to take everyone out and leave no evidence behind. Steve and Terri released the croc in its new Thomson River home, and then Archer and Wheeler followed them in their boat. Steve pretended to still have the croc in the boat so he and Terri could lure who they thought were poachers away from the croc. Jo threw sticks of dynamite at Wheeler and Archer from the air, so the agents shot at her. Steve thought it was a battle between poachers, not knowing it was different department USA Agents battling each other, so Steve turned back to take care of the poachers (agents) in the boat and make sure the croc didn’t get hurt but then Jo dynamite circled back around in mid air and she hit her target and the agents’ boat capsized. Steve and Terri fled, and Jo dropped dynamite at them. Jo then attempted to use her dynamite on the Irwins. However, Steve lassoed rogue agent Jo’s glider with a rope and it nosedived into the water after he attached it to his boat. They didn’t wait around to find the survivor as Steve believed it was a male poacher not a evil female spy agent flying the machine shooting dynamite at them. Steve and Terri drove past Wheeler and Archer stuck in the middle of the river (where the Irwins had just released the monster croc) in their boat and commented that the hunters (poachers) soon become the hunted at the jaws of the croc according to nature’s way. The CIA called the Defense Department after Wheeler and Archer failed their mission. Brozzie and Sam fished the downed glider out of the water with no agents in site. Brozzie sent her dogs out to search the area in case Jo was alive because she didn’t want that wicked woman escaping just punishment after destroying Brozzie’s life and home and endangering her four legged children. Wheeler and Archer made it to their Land Rover vehicle only to find Brozzie’s dogs waiting for them in the backseat. Jo swam ashore without being croc bait too. Soon after, Jo received a call on her cell phone from government boss Ansell, who informed her that the Pentagon would get involved the following day and told her that she needed to disappear from their failed mission. Ansell bragged that nobody could trace it back to him, but then as he spoke from his vehicle, he was put in the spotlight and surrounded by the police and put under arrest, so Jo knew not to return to the USA. President George W. Bush was seen from the White House office and ordered all armed forces to pick up the satellite SE-2020 black box no matter what they had to do to Steve-O to get it. Innocent enough, the Irwins made a small camp in the outback, where Terri bottle-fed the baby kangaroo and Steve played ball with Sui using the USA government satellite black box as a toy. They preached about taking care of the planet and its animals as though on one of their cable TV shows. Out of the blue, a dozen black-ops military helicopters surrounded the Aussie couple in the Queensland outback. Steve couldn’t understand why the army wanted to play with what he thought was a kids’ metal toy. In the end, Brozzie joined Fauna and Fisheries as a volunteer and helped feed the crocs instead of shoot them. The US government assigned Wheeler and Archer to work at the Australian Zoo for no wages. This movie had a budget of $12 million and grossed over $33 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Ebert & Roeper and the Movies, “Two thumbs up!” The movie was released months after 9/11.