IvanF's Cut and Paste, No-Name Theatrical Review of Sahara 2005...

- NoName.Mycrowsoft.com -
"Where do you want to Crow today?"

- IvanF's Mycrowsoft Noname Brand Website -
- noname writing online since May 2002 -

You see, during my late elementary school days when I actually read novels (instead of just pretending like I did), I picked up a well known Clive Cussler title known as Raise the Titanic... and realized just how goddam sucky writing and novels really are...

IT WAS BECAUSE OF CLIVE CUSSLER THAT I NEVER, EVAR WILLINGLY READ A NOVEL EVER AGAIN.

Well, that along with the fact that I'm too goddam lazy to ever really give a damn, but that's a story for another day...

Short story short, even though I thought Clive Cussler's writing style was even worse than Michael Crichton's, I still did like the base plotlines that he centered his stories around. Dirk Pitt was absolutely no James Bond, but the situations he got himself in certainly would've captivated a young mind like mine at the time was... if only Clive Cussler would learn how to goddam write...

Still, I always knew that Dirk Pitt novels would become a decent movie franchise one day...

Because after The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure made it big? It was only a matter of time before the carbon-Hans-Solo-copies and Indiana Jones adventure clones came roaring through the Hollywood doors...

Now, I'm not sure why they chose to adapt Sahara to the box office first. The Titanic is a much bigger name to go by (no pun intended...), so I was wondering why they didn't just start with that novel instead... until I learned they actually did make a Raise the Titanic film back in the 80s. Which now I've got to see, just to remind myself of just how bad the novel was in the first place...

The star of Reign of Fire and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (which I will sadly admit, I've willingly watched five times by now...) was completely not believable as the American version of James Bond that I envisioned from the novels... He's just such a goofy kind of actor, that it's literally impossible to take him seriously as a NUMA, ex-Navy Seal officer. And hell, even the soundtrack couldn't keep itself from cracking a smile... Because was it me, or did they intentionally play "Sweet Home, Alabama" in the background of a scene, just to remind the actor of all those god-awful romantic comedies from his past?...

The thing is though, he may have not been a decent Dirk Pitt, but Matthew McConaughey did make the movie enjoyable somehow... The makers of Sahara must've seen National Treasure a dozen times fold, and realized just why it was such a smash hit at the box office: because it never took itself too seriously. Not even once... And Matthew brought that to Sahara...

He was just a goofy guy, cracking smiles, and making the audience snicker at just how ridiculous all his miraculous escapes were in the film... I mean honestly, he took down a helicopter with an 150 year old cannonball? Why the fuck would an attack chopper ever take the same exact attack path THREE times in a row? Only McConaughey could actually make the scene sound reasonable... And c'mon already, Dirk Pitt can make a sandstorm wind sail out of the wreckage of a busted old plane? And before that, he could miraculously escape from being handcuffed to a jeep, by using a goddam gold coin to take apart the entire damn truck? WHAT THE FUCK?...

... and yet, it kinda worked... it was ridiculous as hell, but Matthew made it work...

The thing is, I was almost actually expecting dragons to be in Sahara. I mean, from every review I had read this morning, the critics made it sound like Sahara had a War of the Worlds going, with space monkeys from the center of the planet and the lost city of Atlantis or something (although I'm sure they're saving those for the next Dirk Pitt adventure... if they haven't been written already...)...

But when I watched Sahara this afternoon, things didn't seem so ridiculous to me. Like I said, the movie never really took itself too seriously. It knew it had goofy, cheesy villains, and played off the fact. It knew it had a horrendously whacked out storyline, that could only possibly sound decent inside a crazy man's head (I'm looking at you, Clive fucktard...)... Nevertheless, while watching the film, I never really once actually thought that the movie was nearly as ridiculous as all the critics were saying...

... at the start of the movie, we had a Confederate Ironclad ship from the American Civil War, just sailing off to Africa for no apparent reason whatsoever... and then one and half hours later, we had Matthew McConaughey fighting for Cruz's life on the top of a giant, solar powered, toxic waste incinerator in the middle of the Mali desert... and, yet..

... eh, whatever. Sure, I was disappointed that Dirk Pitt wasn't eaten by a giant flying dinosaur again or something. But I can wait for the inevitable sequel for that... Either way, no matter how ludicrous the plotline to Sahara was, there's no denying that I did enjoy the movie for what it was worth...

Penelope Cruz was just along for the ride. Literally. All she did was ride in a jeep and ride on a camel, and that's about it... But hey, at least she had some decent chemistry with her current real-life boyfriend (Matthew, for those who don't know). And how can I really complain about her, when they did that lovely, cliche 'nerd to hot chick' transformation with her over the course of the film?... She started out as a completely unconvincing nerd with glasses, and ended up wearing a tight ass, tiny tank top while captured by the evil, generic European bad guy in the end... And why was she just wearing a tiny tank top there? Who knows? And who cares? She looked fine with it, so why ask questions?...

... and then she moved onto the bikini... nice... too bad the movie ended before the nudity began, but I digress...

Surprisingly, Dirk had some actual comic relief with Steve Zahn playing Al, and William H. Macy playing the Admiral... Now, since Sahara is quite forgettable, I already forget quite a few of Zahn's lines. I do remember that he made me laugh though, as he was the only guy who was always hinting to the crowd at just how ridiculous every single scene in the movie turned out to be... William Macy didn't have a lot of time on screen, besides his talks with the CIA operative I guess. He wasn't really believable as the hard nosed Admiral that I remember from the novels either... but I loved his reaction to the "Panama" incident. And he turned out to be a welcomed addition to the cast in the end...

Sahara obviously isn't a world shattering, Oscar-worthy movie or anything. And hells bells, it ain't even as sophisticated as National Treasure was... at least that movie had a 'reasonable' plotline, and actually interesting history lessons in-between...

But Sahara did have kickass music. If there's really one reason to see Sahara, it's because modern day adventure films really seem to have a perfect track record for kickass soundtracks...

It had guns. Lots of guns... A boat chase with tons of bullets flying everywhere. And a whole bunch of armour piercing rounds from an attack chopper, going straight at the ol' Iron Clad (... don't ask)...

It had a completely ludicrous plotline that you'll be laughing at for hours. Really, what was Clive Cussler thinking?... An ironclad that leads to a desert? A desert that leads to a plague? A plague that leads to solar panels? And solar panels that lead to the end of the world? Say what?!?... But hey, it was fun while it lasted. A forgettable popcorn movie, but definitely one worth bringing the family to, just for shits and giggles...