Sahara

Upgraded from earlier rating of three stars upon further reflection.

It's a pretty good film as long as you don't mind the plot confusion, which the director (Breck Eisner) masks with lots of explosions and shots of Penelope Cruz.

In all honesty, I found the movie to be pretty entertaining, and I might even have classified it with the four star rating, but then again, I'm a very forgiving viewer. The main plot (I think?) involves Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and his best friend, Al (Steve Zahn) who are searching the coast of Africa for a lost civil war battleship--an American civil war battleship mind you, which carries some Confederate gold coins. It's really not so ridiculous of an idea, and I actually found myself intrigued by the thought, but unfortunately the story gets sidetracked along the way. The search for the ship is abandoned in favor of the search for Penelope Cruz' character, Dr. Eva Rojas, a World Health Organization doctor who is searching for the source of a new plague in the war-ridden African country of Mali.

There are a lot of entertaining action scenes, and the story itself isn't too bad, except that it was difficult to follow all the subplots, and it's confusing to the viewer when the movie sets itself up as a "lost treasure" hunt, only to then divert itself into something completely unrelated. Granted, the unrelated primary plot is still pretty good, if not quite clearly explained, but it would have been better if I hadn't felt misled. The characters themselves are all very likeable, however, and some of the dialogue is pretty funny, especially from Steve Zahn's character, Al. In fact, I found Al to be the most entertaining character in the movie, even more so than the hero, Dirk. Which is fine--it works in the movie and I suspect the viewer is supposed to feel that way.

I digress. Basically, this is a good film, lots of action, lots of daring escapes, good characters, great music, somewhat shaky plot, but all in all, I was entertained. And that, after all, is the whole point. I give it three stars, but for me personally, I would have classified it as four. You really should see this movie if you have the chance.