Where is Inidana Jones ? I really mean it, where is he ? It’s times like this that we notice he is not around and when the world needs saving, at a time of cinematic peril, our hero is nowhere to be found.
The debut movie outing from director Breck Eisner, ‘Sahara’ , like last years ‘National Treasure’ , is another movie trying to update dear Indy for the masses of the 2000’s, and it’s a whole heap of dry popcorn at best, well that is perhaps a little unfair as it does do some things right. But for these recent boys-own type hero stories with lots of daring do, they seem to miss what made the Jones’ work so well. You need that charming main character, add in lots of peril and jeopardy, with lots of nasty villains with an even nastier leader but all in a light-hearted fashion. You see, that’s where this all goes wrong, Matthew McConaughey’s Dirk Pitt looks and acts more like a lost surfer out of his depth with his sparkly teeth and somewhat overly orange tan, and the bad guys are reduced very much to being caricatures. But the one thing that surely sinks this fish above anything else is the whole eco save the world type subplot ! Just what where they thinking of ? There was enough meat in the treasure hunting side of things for this to work without any of that, and dear old poor Pen Cruz, playing Dr. Eva Rojas, is left to deal with an unbelievable character with as much substance as candyfloss.
Dirk Pitt is created by that master of the immense pulp doorstoppers, Clive Cussler, in what seems to be the first in an intended franchise. Taking only a small part of his novel he has Pitt, an ex Navy Seal, who has a tendency to play around with marine salvage with his old war buddy Al Giordino, the excellent Steve Zahn in top dead pan form, as part of a NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency) team.While out in Nigeria on a salvage mission, Pitt hears stories about his own obsession, that of the long lost Civil War Iron Clad, the Texas, that went missing in the latter days of the War. It was rumoured that it made it all the way across the Atlantic and was sighted in the very area of the world he is now in. Before he can even ask his boss, Admiral Jim Sandecker (the ever reliable William H. Macy), if he can borrow a boat to go and have a little field mission to satisfy his curiosity, he saves Dr. Rojas from some potentially fatal Tuareg thugs.
Dr. Rojas was investigating what she believes to be a plague like death that is sweeping across the African plains. She tackles this virus like a member of CSI (with rubber gloves only, no mask and no suit, despite that she does not know the cause of this fatal epidemic, but then the World Health Organisation might be on a strict budget). She wants to get to the source of this illness before it gets worse and asks for some help from Pitt, his pals, and his boat. Our leading man and woman look good on the screen together, but sadly, the only heat here is from the desert sun.
Pitt and his pal Giordino drop off the good doctor and her cohort, Dr Hopper (Glynn Turman), before the bullets start flying from some nasty military types. We have fast boats and glass flying and some big bangs all done in a rather competent way before we find out they were actually after their passengers. It seems someone wants to keep a lid on this possible plague.
The plot of the movie then goes into seriously farfetched territory involving mad Military dictators, eco-environmentalists housing toxic waste, good Tuareg, bad guys pretending to be bad Tuareg, the world on the brink of disaster, cave paintings of a Civil War Iron Clad, and what leads to a poor James Bond (anti) climatic ending. If that sounds a bit of a mix, it’s because it is, and the movie suffers for it.This movie opens well. After the Civil War bombs and bangs, the title credit sequence is truly great, here, in a few moments of panning around a room looking at photos and paper cuttings we get almost a complete history of Pitt and pal Giordino. We think we are in safe hands for an enjoyable ride, and there are some decent action scenes, but none of the characters are likable enough to help the movie in the sections in between those. Yes you do have Zhan, but he does not have enough to do to carry it on his own shoulders, and Macy and Delroy Lindo, playing a possible CIA man Carl, are so underused that it is a wonder that they took on the parts in the first place. The scenery looks great, but again that is not enough to take you away from the silliness that is on the screen with it. Even from a historical point of view there are some glaring mistakes that proves somebody was asleep that particular day instead of doing their homework (I know this is not meant to be anything like a history lesson but, one star on a Confederate flag nearing the end of the war I hear you say, or that General Jackson died years before the war was over… and so on). It’s ok making a popcorn picture, they are actually needed and serve a purpose in this world we live in, but there is no excuse of a clumsy job in doing so.
The extras mentioned in the database are for the US release, for those UK viewers, you are getting the bare arid bones of the movie only. Still, overall it’s better than that other recent desert born turkey, ‘Hidalgo’
'Sahara' is available to pre-order via Amazon and AmazonUK .database .
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