Sahara review

Without clear direction, it's easy to get lost in the desert. Sahara is clear proof of that. This laboured and unfocussed action adventure gets lost in a sandstorm of sub plots and excess. Drawing inevitable comparisons to the superior Indiana Jones, Sahara lacks the wit and invention of the Spielberg/Lucas trilogy and McConaughey is certainly no Harrison Ford.

Sahara is based on Clive Cussler's series of best selling novels about master explorer Dirk Pitt. In the hands of novice director Breck Eisner (son of Disney boss Michael), the combination of vast budget and sprawling tale prove too much. Although not a complete disaster, the outcome is too derivative and formulaic to inspire much enthusiasm. And even though it's set in West Africa, a location rarely featured in mainstream films, Sahara has more than a whiff of familiarity to it.

It's hard to get beyond the fact that this feels like filmmaking by recipe. Take a literary hit, a handsome leading man, a beautiful woman, a wacky sidekick, stick them in an exotic location add some pyrotechnics, stir for two hours and voila, you have yourself a blockbuster. But as anyone who cooks will testify, the result isn't always very tasty. Things go wrong and often it's the surprise ingredient that prevents something being bland.

For all McConaughey's looks and physical presence, he is a surprisingly lightweight actor. As the rugged, fearless Pitt he lacks heroic status. When we first meet Pitt, the one time Navy Seal is working for NUMA, the National Underwater and Maritime Agency. The organization, headed by Admiral Sandecker (William H. Macy), is hired to salvage sunken artifacts, including historically important vessels. Pitt has long been enthralled by the mystery of an ironclad boat involved in the American civil war. Having just finished a job in Lagos, Pitt and his childhood friend Al (Steve Zahn) follow a lead and go in search of the boat now rumoured to be buried in the desert, one christened by the locals The Ship Of Death.

They are joined on their quest by Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz), a worker with the World Health Organization who is heading to Mali to find the cause of a mysterious deadly plague. In the ensuing journey they come under attack, though figuring out from whom and why isn't easy as Sahara gets mired in a convoluted plot involving the Mali government, Tuareg rebels and a western businessman. The elaborately staged action sequences, though short on inspiration, come as a welcome respite from the turgid story which ultimately links Eva and Pitt's separate searches.

With a library of Pitt adventures to work through, the hope presumably was to make Sahara the first of many, but there's little evidence here to suggest cinema audiences will be eagerly awaiting Dirk's return, especially when Indiana is about to make a comeback.