 |
|
| Contact Us | Classifieds | Search: |
Purchase online
BOL Online
|
Adventure runs dry
Summer action off to a bad start
Staff Writer, The Prague Post June 16, 2005 The opening credits of Sahara have the line "A Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt Adventure," suggesting that this is first of a new Indiana Jones-type series. The main character, Dirk Pitt, was featured 25 years ago in the film Raise the Titanic, but has been in no other films since, even though he appears in more than a dozen popular novels. That is because author Clive Cussler was so unhappy with Raise the Titanic that he held onto the rest of the screen rights until recently. Cussler sold the rights again in 2001 to a production company, but retained the right to approve of the cast and the script. He was so dissatisfied with the script for Sahara that he went to court to try to stop the production. Anybody who bought a ticket might want to talk to him about making it a class action suit to recoup expenses and lost time, not to mention damages resulting from the massive insult to the intelligence of the audience. The story follows some maritime treasure hunters — adventurer Dirk Pitt, played by Matthew McConaughey, and his comic sidekick Al Giordino, played by Steve Zahn — on the trail of an iron-clad ship from the American Civil War. Clues lead to Africa, an unlikely destination. The ship was not really designed for an ocean voyage. The treasure hunters think the ship sailed up a now-dry river and is somewhere under the sand of the Sahara desert. At the same time, a doctor — played by Penelope Cruz — is looking into some cases of plague. Her clues lead to the same place that the missing ship might be. The trio winds up together, and the guys inevitably have to come to the rescue of the girl.
By the end, the adventurers find some big secret in the middle of the desert. The scientific explanation doesn't even reach the minimum for action-film double talk. This whole section, which ties into the original plague story, just makes no sense at even a basic level. The depiction of Africa is at a comic-book level, which is a shame considering that films like Hotel Rwanda and The Interpreter recently started to take the continent seriously. Like its name suggests, this summer action film is a dry well.
Raymond Johnston can be reached at
rjohnston@praguepost.com
|
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.