Post by George Willson on Oct 26, 2005 17:08:32 GMT -5
KIM rating: 2.5.5
This movie was billed as "James Bond meets Indiana Jones." Having all of the movies from both of these franchises in my collection, I have an idea of what that might entail, and while this fits the movie plotwise, it also lacked in other areas where these franchises succeeded.
Number one, and I noticed this very early, the movie tried to do TOO much. We don't have a plot and subplot. We have two plots that intersect. While this is normally good writing, a third plot managed to creep in and override one of the plots for the majority of the film. This made for a very tedious film to watch.
The main plot presented right from the beginning was the search for an iron ship from the Civil War which disappeared, the Texas. This was what our hero, Dirk, was looking for during the film. Most of the references to this plot and the following of it was done by accident. Some happenstance got him to stumble on clues to lead him there.
Another plot was some sort of disease that was plaguing whatever the country was we started in and they determined came from Mali, where of course, our hero looking for his boat was also going. This plot took a more center stage presence than the ship.
The third plot which crept in had to do with a revolution among the Toureg (sp?) faction of the Mail people against their leader who only took power because he killed the previous leader. So mix this revolution with an incident regarding a plague that could go international, coupled with some kind of search for a National Treasure worthy boat, and voila, you have a movie with a whole lotta plot.
Number two, this movie lacked something that James Bond and Indiana Jones have. Character weaknesses. James Bond drinks, smokes, gambles, and can't pass up a beautiful woman. These vices get him into a lot of trouble and damage his mission quite often. Indiana Jones is a birlliant archaelologist, but he cannot handle snakes. He freaks out over them.
The hero of Sahara has no weaknesses or vices besides the hunt for this boat. He knows everything, can get out of any situation, and is in every way, superhuman. He would do things that make little sense when they occur, but somehow work out to his benefit. While his sidekick seems a little bumbling like an idiot, he is anything but, and plays a solid role only slightly less superhuman than the main character.
In Bond and Jones, there is always a bit of character development from one of the supporting characters, if not from themselves. In Bond, it is usually the girl that grows. Jones has a mix in its three films. Sahara has none from anyone. No one ends the films any different than they began (unless they died). Sure the hero got the girl, but she appeared to fancy him from the get-go. There was no real change there. We just saw an episode of a very expensive serial episode.
It had some fun action sequences, and the plot(s) was clever, but without the character growth, it kinda laid a little flat for me.
This movie was billed as "James Bond meets Indiana Jones." Having all of the movies from both of these franchises in my collection, I have an idea of what that might entail, and while this fits the movie plotwise, it also lacked in other areas where these franchises succeeded.
Number one, and I noticed this very early, the movie tried to do TOO much. We don't have a plot and subplot. We have two plots that intersect. While this is normally good writing, a third plot managed to creep in and override one of the plots for the majority of the film. This made for a very tedious film to watch.
The main plot presented right from the beginning was the search for an iron ship from the Civil War which disappeared, the Texas. This was what our hero, Dirk, was looking for during the film. Most of the references to this plot and the following of it was done by accident. Some happenstance got him to stumble on clues to lead him there.
Another plot was some sort of disease that was plaguing whatever the country was we started in and they determined came from Mali, where of course, our hero looking for his boat was also going. This plot took a more center stage presence than the ship.
The third plot which crept in had to do with a revolution among the Toureg (sp?) faction of the Mail people against their leader who only took power because he killed the previous leader. So mix this revolution with an incident regarding a plague that could go international, coupled with some kind of search for a National Treasure worthy boat, and voila, you have a movie with a whole lotta plot.
Number two, this movie lacked something that James Bond and Indiana Jones have. Character weaknesses. James Bond drinks, smokes, gambles, and can't pass up a beautiful woman. These vices get him into a lot of trouble and damage his mission quite often. Indiana Jones is a birlliant archaelologist, but he cannot handle snakes. He freaks out over them.
The hero of Sahara has no weaknesses or vices besides the hunt for this boat. He knows everything, can get out of any situation, and is in every way, superhuman. He would do things that make little sense when they occur, but somehow work out to his benefit. While his sidekick seems a little bumbling like an idiot, he is anything but, and plays a solid role only slightly less superhuman than the main character.
In Bond and Jones, there is always a bit of character development from one of the supporting characters, if not from themselves. In Bond, it is usually the girl that grows. Jones has a mix in its three films. Sahara has none from anyone. No one ends the films any different than they began (unless they died). Sure the hero got the girl, but she appeared to fancy him from the get-go. There was no real change there. We just saw an episode of a very expensive serial episode.
It had some fun action sequences, and the plot(s) was clever, but without the character growth, it kinda laid a little flat for me.