Sahara

It's National Treasure meets Flight of the Phoenix while trying to be Indiana Jones. Yeah, all that, and while those movies range from classic masterpieces to just ok, Sahara fails in most departments, only succeeding in the funny section thanks to its supporting players.
And I know this is based on a Clive Cussler's novel and all that but I've never heard of those before, so I'm going to disregard them simply my review would be wrong if I had read the novel, and also knowing that it was written before all the movies I mentioned before were made.

Anyway, it's the story of Dirk Pitt (played by Matthew McConaughey), a cocky Indy-like marine explorer and treasure hunter in search of a Civil War ship that is somehow probably somewhere in Africa, in the Sahara desert. So he goes to Niger and Nigeria to find out joined by his best friend and exploring partner Al Giordino (Steve Zahn). They are financed by an ex-Admiral named James Sandecker played by William H. Macy. While in Africa, they meet a UN doctor named Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) who's trying to find out about a decease that's killing people in Mali. The 3 of them join forces in trying to find out about the problem, and go to Mali while the country is in the middle of a civil war of their own.

McConaughey is ok, though I don't like his Dirk Pitt character at all. Same goes for Penelope Cruz, who's totally non believable as a doctor and is only there because she's hot. And I do think she can act. In fact, she's a great actress, but not here in the US, she needs to go back to Almodovar and Amenabar in Spain.
What saves the movie is its comedy, specially when coming from Steve Zahn and Rainn Wilson who plays another fellow explorer. The CIA is also involved with the participation of Delroy Lindo. These two the funniest scenes and it's the only thing the movie has going on as it fails completely storywise despite having an African Civil War going on which I would usually love.
I do give credit to the writers for at least keeping the romance for the final scene of the movie instead of having the main characters engage in a love story in the middle of the story while there's a million things going on which is what usually happens in these type of movies. On the other hand, of course that the American Civil War ship plot comes back at the end.

So I didn't like the leads, the story was too much like previous movies we've seen before, and though yes, it was funny, it wasn't fun enough. In fact, this movie makes me want to watch National Treasure again and wait for that sequel.