My husband and I bought the DVD for “Sahara” the other day, and finally watched it for the first time this afternoon. To make it clear, we did not see it in the theatre or in any way previously.
I wasn’t thrilled with the purchase, but my husband bought it anyhow, knowing full well he would re-sell it soon after. With the opening scene we began comparing it, automatically, to the book. We read all the Dirk Pitt books long ago, long before the movie for this one was in the works. I had my husband pull out the book Sahara a few months ago. I re-read almost half of it, but didn’t finish it, intending on doing so before seeing the movie, and so it goes.
The opening scene was about the Confederate sub … and didn’t clearly show what it was about. Where was Lincoln in the story? In the book surely, in the movie? Not at all. Where was the noteworthy production in film as it was detailed in words of the book? Vacant.
Each Dirk Pitt adventure begins with an old-tale … something of historical value that will inter-connect with Dirk and Al in some NUMA excursion in said book.
Sahara had two old tales, the Confederate Ship, and the Female Solo Aviator. The plane showed up in the movie without any clue as to what the book detailed about it. So it’s part of the story, but not. It was a vacant point.
I will not go over each detail of deviation, it goes far and wide, that is all I will say about details. It leaves things out. OK I said more. I know that there were brilliant moments, but only a few. A few Al things shown through, though Al didn’t look like Al, nor act like Al most of the time.
Dirk just didn’t work as a southern guy either. Dirk and Al are a manly pair, in the reality of the actual books. The two in the movie are anything but hairy-chested men.
In the end it was a movie full of action, and dubbed in music that only cheapened it. It was a movie more full of duddy wuddy than action though, and that means a lot!
My husband has already gone off to Blockbuster to see about exchanging the movie for another … a new once-viewed for previously viewed probably, previously viewed umpth-times. Once or more, who knows. Who knows whence it came …
[Update: He didn’t turn it in, even THEY only wanted to give $6 for this newly released DVD.] [Re-Update: Hubby just came home and told me that on the phone when he told me he didn’t turn in the DVD and get a new one for me, he felt bad, I sounded so sad, so he went back and turned it in and got me a pre-viewed The Village, a movie I have seen as a rental, many views of it, love it!]
I do know that one viewing of Sahara was too much for me. Goony, a rip-off. Read the books, they aren’t high literary stuff, but are much more-so than this movie-based-on-book movie was. I have read the Dirk Pitt books, I say again. This movie didn’t contain the spirit of any of the books, let alone this particular one volume. Other more recent adaptions onscreen have been The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for one, and it had changes, left things out, but contained the spirit of the books absolutely. More recent was the adaption of the first three Lemony Snicket series books. Massive changes and deletions, but the spirit of it was decent, and acceptable, with a few winks. Sahara gets a massive thumbs down from me, overall, 0 out of 5, but for the sake of movie-only folks, people that have never read, nor ever will read a Dirk Pitt adventure, I’ll give it a 1 out of 5 officially due to stuff blowing up in the flick. It’s an awesome failure. Really, a pathetic attempt at adapting the book, and how Clive Cussler liked it, I have no idea. Clive, your books are much, much, much, much, MUCH better, and deserve more. Someone more manly in the roles that FIT THE actual profiles. Oh, Rudy was a washout too. Mr. Computer doesn’t look or act like his movie self. Sorely dissapointing, but I wasn’t ever looking to really see any Dirk Pitt books on screen, it wouldn’t work. See, it didn’t. In My Opinion.