The Crocodile Hunter review

Aussie adventurer Steve Irwin is renowned for catching crocs with his bare hands and relocating them to natural environments without the aid of tranquillisers. His TV show, Croc Files, has built up a loyal fanbase and given Irwin the commercial clout to `star' in this bizarre documentary-cum-fictional-comedy.

It centres on an unsuspecting Australian crocodile, who's swallowed a NASA satellite beacon and is being hotly pursued by CIA agents. Meanwhile, our man Irwin is sent to bundle the reptile to safer waters...

Watching Irwin wrestle a 12-foot croc or rile a poisonous, bird-eating spider will always be top entertainment, but the ridiculous plot is a mere distraction. The idea, clever-clever on paper but miserable in execution, is to spin the story around the docu-segments: Irwin never actually interacts with the other characters, his antics just act as dots to join up the narrative thread. Trouble is, there's absolutely zero fusion, the two elements remaining steadfastly separate. Collision course, indeed.