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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Sahara
Paramount Pictures


6.6

based on 33 reviews
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based on 52 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for action violence

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penélope Cruz, Lambert Wilson, Glynn Turman, Delroy Lindo, William H. Macy, and Dayna Cussler

Clive Cussler's master explorer Dirk Pitt (McConaughey) takes on the adventure of his life when he embarks on a treasure hint through some of the most dangerous regions of West Africa. Searching for what the locals call "The Ship of Death," a long lost Civil War battleship which protects a secret cargo, Pitt and his wisecracking sidekick (Zahn) use their wits and clever heroics to help Doctor Eva Rojas (Cruz) when they realize the shop may be linked to mysterious deaths in the same area. (Paramount Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Adventure \| Comedy
WRITTEN BY:	Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer John C. Richards James V. Hart Clive Cussler (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Breck Eisner
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 30, 2005 Video: August 30, 2005 Theatrical: April 8, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	127 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Spain

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The casting is so strong and the overall filmmaking flair of the movie is so captivating that it basically works.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I enjoyed this movie on its own dumb level.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

As Sahara careens between swashbuckling silliness and semi-serious comment, it builds up reserves of energy and good will that pay off when it bursts into its final sprint, a rootin'-tootin' 21-gun finale as satisfying as it is preposterous.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Surprisingly entertaining.

Empire Dan Jolin

About as good as a big, stupid American action movie can be without ever being anything better than a big, stupid American action movie.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

This insanely busy, exceedingly long, and sometimes endearingly preposterous rendering has simply gotten the directions reversed in its insistence on sticking only to where men-who-make-adventure-flicks have gone before.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Takes the action/adventure story to new heights of preposterousness. In a way, that's not a bad thing, since it allows a certain level of guilty enjoyment.

Variety Robert Koehler

Saddled with more industry/celebrity baggage than a high-class safari voyage, Sahara is a rousing and only occasionally ridiculous adventure yarn.

Premiere Peter Debruge

Rojas is played by Penélope Cruz, who's endearing enough, but still comes across coarse and irritating every time she attempts a role in English.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

McConaughey, despite alarmingly orange makeup, does justice to the role, a hard-drinking, shipwreck- hunting senator's son with a 007 way with the ladies.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Action films can't be this consistently absurd, can't paint their heroes into such dangerous corners, from which only cocktails of luck and divine intervention can save them, over and over. It's a bad-faith bargain with the audience and bad storytelling.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The movie, first preposterously entertaining and then just preposterous, makes James Bond films look as logical as Euclidean geometry.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's not that Sahara is offensively bad: It's just that the picture, loud and busy as it is, never really finds its own identity.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Spectacularly silly and perversely entertaining.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Sahara doesn't waste time on introductions. It wastes time in other ways.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Most of the personality work in the film is left to Steve Zahn.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

It ain't art, and it's dumber than I'd like, but I don't imagine you were expecting Kieslowski.

New York Post Kyle Smith

If the filmmakers had spent $14.98 of that $100 mil on a DVD of "The Mummy," they might have learned a few things: You need a head villain who is surpassingly evil, you need some jokes that get laughs - and a few sword-fighting skeletons wouldn't hurt.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Eisner is not remotely up to the challenge. Spending millions on action scenes does not mean you get them right.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Breck Eisner, son of former Disney mogul Michael and something of a protégé of Steven Spielberg, for whom he directed an episode of the miniseries "Taken," guides Sahara's big action set pieces with assurance, but would have been better served by a tighter script.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The film clocks in at under two hours, but the last 20 minutes feel like 40.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the historical premise for this Indiana Jones knockoff.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Just don't go expecting complex moral and ethical quandaries and you'll likely never think of "Ishtar" even once.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Sahara is many things, but it is not a movie. It is the skull-splitting cacophony of 21 producers and four screenwriters (that we know about, anyway) standing in the same room shouting into their cell phones.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

McConaughey is usually a welcome presence, but here, he looks like making the movie was getting in the way of his exciting African adventure.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Any movie starring Penelope Cruz or William H. Macy can't be all bad. And Sahara, which stars both Penelope Cruz and William H. Macy, proves the point: It isn't all bad.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

This perfectly distracting, ultimately unsatisfying film feels like a James Bond flick in which the stand-in got the lead.

Boston Globe Janice Page

In the end, the thing that Cussler's fans will probably object to most is the nonsensical way Sahara manhandles his story.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

McConaughey remains more buffed than compelling. He's not helped by a two-hour convolution of episodes that are too busy imitating other, better movies.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The greatest hits of '70s bar-rock soundtrack - "We're an American Band," "Right Place, Wrong Time," "Sweet Home Alabama," "Magic Carpet Ride" etc. - has a certain rollicking, kick-ass energy that, unfortunately, never rubs off on the movie.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

An adventure in mediocrity that brings together some of the worst current techniques and trends.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Sahara is a mediocrity wrapped inside a banality, toasted in a nice, fresh cliche.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

A stunning piece of work--stunningly inept, stunningly incoherent, stunningly awful in every single way imaginable.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 52 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Junior B. gave it a6:
This movie is ok if there is nothing else on tv i guess. McConaughey once again shows that he can only play one character - good ol southern boy, cocky, too cool for school(i'm guessing that's must be his real personality).The HD-DVD version has amazing picture quality which is the main reason i gave it a 6. Also Penelope Cruz was very nice to look at. BTW who picked the songs for this movie? Matthew McConaughey himself using his dazed and confused leftovers tracks.

Fred Bob gave it a7:
It's pretty good, but has a couple of dragging spots.

CJ gave it a0:
The worst trash I have ever seen. I would have paid to get out of the cinema while watching it.

Steve P. gave it an8:
every once in a wile, we need to get away from all the political rederick, deep meaning, and hidden mediphors of the film industry. some times movie viewers just want a ride, a action packed, joke filled, little adventure. Films like indana jones, leathle wepons, and Sahara. it's not award winner, but it is fun to watch. i'm gald that not EVERYONE in hollywood a critic pleasing, award winning MOVIE SNOBBS. and still have the capibility to make a good holsome adventure film for the family. see it!

Mark B. gave it a2:
Dashing but devil-may-care Matthew McConaughey (A Time to Kill, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) and goofy but lovable Steve Zahn (Joy Ride, Riding in Cars with Boys) are normally two actors I really like, but they couldn't convince me here that they once stood in the same supermarket line, much less have been buddies-in-adventure all their lives, and that's not the least of this astonishingly dull action-comedy's problems. Breck Eisner paces it the way I hope his dad, famed studio exec Michael E., DIDN'T use to run board meetings--literally forty-five minutes pass in which absolutely nothing happens! Obviously this movie wants desperately to reinvent the Indiana Jones wheel, a difficult task but not an impossible one, as both the original Romancing the Stone and 2004's surprisingly refreshing and enjoyable National Treasure certainly prove. [***SPOILERS***]The plot deals with McConaughey's and Zahn's search through the eponymous, scoundrel-filled desert for an extremely rare coin; it takes a seriously wrong turn midway through when it uses the plight of diseased Africans heartlessly used as corporate cannon fodder. The Constant Gardener earns the right to employ this storyline because that's the heart of the film and because it takes that wrenching situation seriously; Sahara uses it as a spiffy little McGuffin, which is nothing short of obscene. (Perhaps this is one reason why Gardener's source author, John LeCarre, is regarded as a real writer while Sahara's, Clive Cussler, is considered a hack.) Almost as offensive is Sahara's total waste of the great William H. Macy in the all-but-invisible role of McConaughey's and Zahn's superior; one of the movie's more curious aspects is its uninspired, supposedly jocular use of several 1974 Top 40 hits ("Sweet Home Alabama", "Right Place Wrong Time"), but in Macy's case it should've added one more: "Billy, Don't Be A Hero (Or Anything Else)".

[Anonymous] gave it a7:
A fun adventure that's worth a ride, but it OD's on improbability every now and then.

Pat C. gave it a4:
An action movie that flaunts its refusal to do reality checks.

Sahara Paramount Pictures

Sahara
Paramount Pictures