Sahara: A good, old-fashioned popcorn movie

Sahara; 2:00; PG-13, for action-violence; Grade: B-

Summer started early with the release of the lively action/adventure, Sahara.

Sahara, with its playful energy, feels very much like a good Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Many film critics love to hate the kind of movies Bruckheimer is famous for producing (Bad Boys 1&2, The Rock, National Treasure) because they consist almost entirely of explosions, car-chases, gun fights, wise-cracking hotshots, and plotlines that exist solely to serve up another explosion. So what? His movies are fun, and so is Sahara.

In Sahara, Mathew McConaughey (Reign of Fire, Amistad) plays Dirk Pitt, a modern-day sort-of Indiana Jones. Equipped with scuba gear, pseudo-archeological sleuthing and dumb luck, the former Navy SEAL hunts ancient artifacts lost underwater. While in Western Africa, he takes a detour to search for a lost ironclad Confederate warship. How, and why, a civil war tank-on-water might end up in Africa is difficult to understand, but whatever.

In a parallel storyline, Penelope Cruz (Vanilla Sky, Gothika) is Eva Rojas, a W.H.O. field agent searching for the source of a deadly disease outbreak. Wearing glasses that are destined to come off, and a ponytail you know she’ll let down, Eva joins Dirk’s team when they learn that their mysteries are linked.

Adapted from a Clive Cussler novel, Sahara’s screenplay is credited to four authors, and proves that it’s easy to have too many cooks in the kitchen. The one obvious weakness in the movie: very few pieces of the story actually fit coherently together. The script overflows with plot contrivances that are absurd, including a doomsday end-of-the-world scenario that only makes sense using Hollywood pretend-science.

But I doubt any of the screenwriters would consider that much of a criticism, because they clearly weren’t going for believability. Instead, it seems much more important to them that the movie has enough snappy one-liners to keep the audience smiling, and it does. Most of said quips are delivered by Dirk’s partner and comedic sidekick, Al (Steve Zahn—Daddy Day Care, National Security), and Zahn delivers them well. Sahara has some good laughs.

Director Breck Eisner, crossing over from TV for the first time, keeps Sahara moving along with a constant high energy level. Our three main characters are all likeable and neither Cruz, McConaughey, Zahn, or Eisner seem to be taking what they’re doing too seriously. In this kind of movie, that’s a good thing. Simply put, Sahara is a good old-fashioned popcorn movie, the kind you grew up watching on Saturday mornings.

Comments? E-mail Weindl at joewatchesmovies@yahoo.com.