Hey folks, Harry here... I'm not wild about the trailer for this, tonally it just seems awfully broad - but from the sound of this, it seems that this film is meant to be broad - so I suppose we need to approach this like Roger Moore BOND or Kurt Russell JACK BURTON and see how it stacks up. Light spoilers follow. Here ya go...
Hey Harry,
Long time reader, well you know the rest. This is the second scoop I sent you, the first being that slam of Van Helsing from March of last year.
Well anyway tonight I got the chance Sahara starring Matthew McConuhey (sp?) at the Arizona Mills 24 (oddly enough the same theatre) in Tempe,Az. Let me first off tell you that the movie was ok, good but not great, but not Stephen Sommers bad.
The movie is about a dude named Dirk Pitt from the acclaimed Clive Cussler novels (never read them but did see Raise the Titanic in 3rd grade) whose is a cross between Dr.Jones, Bond, and McConauhey's character from Dazed and Confused, who also happens to be a treasure hunter. The movie also stars Penelope Cruz, Bill Mackey, Steve Zhan, the always awesome Delray Linda, and the Merovingian from the Matrix Reloaded.
So basically the movie is Dirk finds a girl who is treating a weird virus in Africa and sets off on an adventure thru the Niger river to find sunken Confederate gold from an old civil type UP-Boat thingy. In the process they stop chemical dumping into Africa's drinking water which is poisoning people and they happen to stumble onto the lost treasure in the middle of the desert. Its a cool movie with pretty good action sequences but you never get the feeling of real danger, very fluff stuff here.
Hell I can't really even see why this movie would garner a PG-13 rating, there is no major violence and hardly any swearing except for maybe a few asses here and there. There are a few key action scenes one involving a yacht and the other involving canons.
All in all a fun movie, but still very safe with a running time just shy of two hours. Maybe it was me and my equally as cynical friend in attendance, but the audience was eating up the jokes like crazy. I mean they were chuckle funny but not ha ha funny. I attribute that to Steve Zahn who probably worked more into the movie than was actually written. The only real bad thing is the soundtrack, it's a little heavy on the Steppenwolf and the Skynard for my tastes, not to sound like a total film fag but I think a movie like Sahara should have had a more epic feel to it, and a solid classical score might have helped.
There is a little score in it, but it borders on James Bond. I am sure the movie is pretty much in the can considering there were no temp tracks and only a few scenes still needed to be color timed. One nice thing I noticed that there was barely any CG at all which is kind of a relief considering how many films now seem to depend on it. Still when its released I would recommend it for mindless safe entertainment, the way the audience reacted I am sure Paramount will have a decent hit on their hands. you stay classy Harry,
-GoNICKyourself!!
