I drove to Provo yesterday with my mom to see Sahara, and I was surprised at how good it was. I’ve read most of Clive Cussler’s books at least twice, but I wasn’t sure how well they could pull off a movie based on any of them. I went into the theater with very low expectations (just so I wasn’t let down), but I left thinking it was better than I’d hoped. There were a lot of things done differently in the movie than in the book, but I think most of the changes were necessary to keep the movie flowing and keep people interested–you just can’t fit that much detail into two hours. Matthew McConaughey wasn’t even a bad Dirk Pitt.
One interesting thing is that IMDb lists Dayna Cussler as playing Kitty Mannock, but that part must have been completely cut out of the movie. Kitty’s part in the book was not very big at all, but the land yacht part was pretty big and memorable, and they devoted only about a minute or two of the movie to that entire part. It was pretty disappointing, actually–I liked that portion of the book, it was very much akin to Flight of the Phoenix.
Another thing I didn’t like was that they way overplayed Dirk’s hunt for the Civil War ironclad ship. They made it seem as though it had been his lifelong crusade to find something that nobody else believed could exist, especially in Africa. In the book, the possibiliy of the ship existing there was something he happened to stumble upon by chance near the beginning of the adventure, not something he’d devoted half of his life trying to find.
Oh, and I really wish they’d have shown Dirk Pitt’s aircraft hangar/apartment!
Anyhow, after seeing the movie we did a little shopping, and while walking into a store, I suddenly felt a slight twinge in my neck. It quickly changed from a twinge to all-out pain and stiffness, to the point where I could barely move my head without shooting pain all throughout my neck and shoulder. The pain has stayed pretty bad ever since–it’s been almost 12 hours since it happened, but I have no idea why it happened. It feels like the same problem I’ve had with my back in the past, where some muscles go into spasm for no apparent reason. I took a Zanaflex and a Percocet before going to bed, and I woke up about a half hour ago (2:30 am) and was wide awake. The pain is still there, but I think the Percocet just makes it so I don’t care about it as much. 🙂 I hope it goes away soon, ’cause it really interferes with everything I do.