Sahara

The most important pieces to making this film work are making sure that Matthew McConaughey is effortless at making Pitt look brilliant and that he and Steve Zahn work as long-time buddies.

They do.

Breck Eisner did a good job with the cast but, at times, Sahara feels like his first big-budget studio film. Which it is.

Penelope Cruz looks good but was completely unneccessary as Eva Rojas (who gave weight to the book but was reduced to 'obligatory hottie' by writter Thomas Dean Donnelly and understandably so - a direct adaptation would have yielded a 4+ hour movie).

Fans of Dirk Pitt Adventures will be dissapointed with this film. Matthew McConaughey is too young and the wrong breed of cocky to be Dirk Pitt and Steve Zahn isn't even remotely Italian. There is a reason Clive Cussler sued the studio over this film.

If you don't care about any of that... Sahara starts off a little slow but, once it finds it's footing, end up being a lot of fun.