Wednesday, January 26, 2005
GoNickYourself says moderately nice things about SAHARA!
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=19249
Hey folks, Harry here... I'm not wild about the trailer for this, tonally it just seems awfully broad - but from the sound of this, it seems that this film is meant to be broad - so I suppose we need to approach this like Roger Moore BOND or Kurt Russell JACK BURTON and see how it stacks up. Light spoilers follow. Here ya go...
Hey Harry,

Long time reader, well you know the rest. This is the second scoop I sent you, the first being that slam of Van Helsing from March of last year.

Well anyway tonight I got the chance Sahara starring Matthew McConuhey (sp?) at the Arizona Mills 24 (oddly enough the same theatre) in Tempe,Az. Let me first off tell you that the movie was ok, good but not great, but not Stephen Sommers bad.

The movie is about a dude named Dirk Pitt from the acclaimed Clive Cussler novels (never read them but did see Raise the Titanic in 3rd grade) whose is a cross between Dr.Jones, Bond, and McConauhey's character from Dazed and Confused, who also happens to be a treasure hunter. The movie also stars Penelope Cruz, Bill Mackey, Steve Zhan, the always awesome Delray Linda, and the Merovingian from the Matrix Reloaded.

So basically the movie is Dirk finds a girl who is treating a weird virus in Africa and sets off on an adventure thru the Niger river to find sunken Confederate gold from an old civil type UP-Boat thingy. In the process they stop chemical dumping into Africa's drinking water which is poisoning people and they happen to stumble onto the lost treasure in the middle of the desert. Its a cool movie with pretty good action sequences but you never get the feeling of real danger, very fluff stuff here.

Hell I can't really even see why this movie would garner a PG-13 rating, there is no major violence and hardly any swearing except for maybe a few asses here and there. There are a few key action scenes one involving a yacht and the other involving canons.

All in all a fun movie, but still very safe with a running time just shy of two hours. Maybe it was me and my equally as cynical friend in attendance, but the audience was eating up the jokes like crazy. I mean they were chuckle funny but not ha ha funny. I attribute that to Steve Zahn who probably worked more into the movie than was actually written. The only real bad thing is the soundtrack, it's a little heavy on the Steppenwolf and the Skynard for my tastes, not to sound like a total film fag but I think a movie like Sahara should have had a more epic feel to it, and a solid classical score might have helped.

There is a little score in it, but it borders on James Bond. I am sure the movie is pretty much in the can considering there were no temp tracks and only a few scenes still needed to be color timed. One nice thing I noticed that there was barely any CG at all which is kind of a relief considering how many films now seem to depend on it. Still when its released I would recommend it for mindless safe entertainment, the way the audience reacted I am sure Paramount will have a decent hit on their hands. you stay classy Harry,

-GoNICKyourself!!

Welcome to the forum and thank you for the information! It's good to know this stuff because I have to pre-approve movies for my parents to see. They rarely see anything with a rating above PG. Mind you I live 9 states away from them, but still feel it's my duty to report. LOL
Your contact who wrote the review needs to learn to spell people's names though! I'm sure Delroy Lindo would appreciate it! :lol:

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for this info!
I kind of like the idea of Skynard and Steppenwolf on the soundtrack, but that's just me. Hign energy rock would lend itself well if the movie can convey this energy.
From that viewer's perspective, it's hard to say if the general viewing public will enjoy the movie. And while the movie has a built-in audience with the Cusslerites, it will be the box-office draw from the general public that will make or break this film...and the possibility of any sequels.

Just to clarify - I don't think the guy who submitted this is named Harry. He just cut and pasted a review sent into Harry Knowles Aint-It-Cool-News website. Harry responded on his webiste with the "Hey Folks, Harry Here". It's copied word for word.

The fact that Harry is NOT excited about the trailer sends a HUGE message and is much more worrisome than the fact that this is the same reviewer who panned Van Helsing. Paramount is probably sweating bullets about now and needs to be aggressive in their marketing (i.e Super Bowl and magazines) to overcome the negative buzz.

Want to hear a cynical Australian's point of view? Well if your reading you want to.. Aggresive advertising is good but whats the point of doing it at the 'superbowl' when I live 10,000mi from there? not a damned thing. So do you think that Paramount is overly worried about one reviewers thoughts? nope! sure they might take some tips from them but sweat it? nope! On the other hand, if there were copious amounts of bad citisism, then they might change their view. And its a trailer! Some of the crappiest movies have had the best trailers, ie Grudge!!?? Pathetic story line, great scares but it doesn't really end. I'd say to Paramount, Don't count 'em till they've hatched, but also to the public not to judge something till you see it.

Welcome to the forum w: w: