Thu, 20 Oct 2005
Sahara - ***
I'm way behind in my movie "reviews". I finally watched Sahara though and wanted to post something. Maybe I should wait until I have more time to write, but here's what I think in a nutshell.
I read The Clive Cussler book Sahara first. I hadn't heard of him, but Kevin H. and I were talking about watches over cigars one night. He told me about the Doxa Diver and the book tie in(s). After that, I picked up a bunch of used books at Green Apple, including a few Cussler books. They're highly entertaining. The watch talk continued separately as it always does over Yahoo! IM and emails (including a flurry of exchanges with Cory S and Kevin H regarding dive watches, my being a moron for still not buying one, timezone.com, panerai and the Seiko 6138 and 6139. But that's another blog story/post for another day. The point is that I feel I should be schizo for the movie review. Had I not read the book, I would've given the movie 3 or 4 stars. And if I were one of those hardcore Cussler fanboys from teh intarweb, I would have given it 0 stars. But I'm in the middle and I'm more objective. Sahara's not the best movie, but it's highly entertaining. It's a bit formulaic and you can kind of tell where the movie's going. But I thought it was filmed well and the pace really keeps things moving. That said, I know how greatly the book differs (don't read this part Kevin/Lisa). And I mean it differs a lot. Once I saw the movie, I understood why the ever-fussy Cussler sued the production group over the script. There are huge differences in the plot, the setup and story. But you know what? To be fair, so what? There's no way you could include everything from the book into the film. The Civil War story line would've taken so much screentime it would've left the film as a "Lincoln Lived, but in Africa! OMGLOLWTF?!?" story. The movie didn't include the ruthlessness of Kazim and Massarde. They tried, but it wasn't that clear. The movie left out the whole UN response team and army shootouts. But like I said- that's fine. There's so much in the book that you have to enjoy it on it's own. And because of that, you have to have the movie stand on it's own too. So I give it three magic asterisks. One each for Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, and the lovely Penelope Cruz. Oh, and an honorable star for the guy who played Rudi (Rainn Wilson). I could see them doing another NUMA movie. It'd be a good flick. If you don't agree, go pick up some Cussler books, they're pretty fun.20 Oct 18:53 | /movies | 0 comment(s)
Trackback
TrackBack ping me at:
http://www.kenneths.org/flog/movies/sahara.trackback
