Review of Sahara (2005) by Healingtoolbox — 21 Aug 2020

The professional reviews get this correctly, I believe. Note the mixtures of pluses and minuses. Unlike many failed Indiana Jones movies, this one has a substantial plot. For pandemic-lockdown TV it's good. As a checklist of how movie execs in suits imagining and approving plot points, it tells the story of where these films go off the rails, despite so many positives. It's more about making a blockbuster than about telling a story with characters you care about.

From a writing point of view by Chicago Tribune's Robert K. Elder this review shines for me: 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 [that the best of the Bond films understand must be avoided]. This is more like the Roger Moore Bond films played for laughs with big budgets.