Movie Reviews

This past weekend I took my sister to see Sahara in the movie theatre and we watched The Final Cut on DVD.

Sahara is a good, clean adventure flick that's fun for the whole family. (DVD quote, here I come.) The pairing of Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn for the entire movie was inspired casting. Matthew's character is the presumed lead character but it's a buddy picture and they put that to good use for most of the movie. The part where they split up to accomplish separate goals is cliche but I'll forgive that. I also predicted the resolution of the climax of the movie twenty minutes before it happened and that seemed more annoying to me. I still loved this movie but then, what movies do I see ever see and not love?

Sahara was the #1 movie at the box office this past weekend and with good cause. It's very much in line with National Treasure, the film with Nicholas Cage that was released in November 2004. That film made $171 million with $35.1 million on the opening Thanksgiving weekend and I expect Sahara to have a similar, though somewhat lower, box office take.

Sahara is based on a book by Clive Cussler and apparently it's part of a series starring the central character of Dirk Pitt. Classic name. My sister told me that they plan to do various sequels and turn it into a long running franchise, which was news to me. The ending of the movie does set this up subtly with Dirk's boss, the Admiral (William H. Macy). This page, about half way down, details how the author came up with the idea for the character. It seems the author was a copy writer for an ad agency when he decided to do write something fun for himself as a side project. He aimed for something along the lines of Indiana Jones and other pulp fiction heroes but he tried to create something unique that didn't just rehash the premise of spies or detectives, hence the intrepid underwater explorer. I'm looking forward to it if they do continue with the other books in this series.

As for The Final Cut, apparently it was released back in October 2004. Since it only made $0.5 million at the box office, I presume that it had a limited release and that explains why I never heard of it until now. This one follows suit with Robin William's previous dramatic roles in Insomnia and One Hour Photo.

It's an interesting sci-fi movie with a couple of twists but it's not much for suspense. I just found the premise fascinating: A company sells organic chips that record every sight and sound that you ever experience, starting from the moment you're born. When you die, a professional uses these video clips to splice together a 2-hour rememory movie that is shown at your funeral. The cutter sees everything that you ever saw and can choose to show only the best parts of your life, leaving the ugliness forgotten. Cool concept even if it was a little tepid.

P.S. Did I include enough links?