Sahara

Herald rating: *

Indiana Jones got here first, and funnier, but a whole new generation of movie-goers don't know that. Matthew McConaughey plays Dirk Pitt, an ex-Navy Seal who's turned his wetsuit into a marine salvage business with his services buddy Al Giordino (Steve Zahn).

Their National Underwater and Marine Agency team is on a mission to Nigeria when Pitt hears stories about his obsession, the long-lost Civil War battleship Texas, that somehow ended up under the waters off Africa. By another remarkable coincidence, Dr Rojas (Penelope Cruz) is in town to investigate a plague that is devastating the people of the African plains and needs ... oh, you've lost track of the story?

You imagine what it's like, trying to write this with a straight face. Or laptop. And I haven't even got on to the mad military dictators, the environmentalists and the toxic waste, the good nomads in the desert, the African cave paintings of a lost American Civil War warship, and ... heck, Indiana Jones was cool.

* DVD, video rental out now