This was much better than I remembered it being. It's a fun popcorn flick and not nearly as ham-fisted as it could have been.Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and his best friend Al Giordino (Steve Zahn) are marine salvage specialists, AKA treasure hunters, working for a private company run by their old admiral (William H. Macy). They accidentally get involved with an epidemiologist (Penelope Cruz) searching for Patient Zero of a possible outbreak along the Niger River. Pitt is looking for a fabled Civil War era ironclad that rumors hold came to the coast of Africa in the late 1800s. Wouldn't you know it, both goals are interconnected via a conniving Frenchman (Lambert Wilson) and a ruthless warlord (Lennie Jones).
Dirk Pitt is the protagonist of a long-running adventure book series by Clive Cussler. Now, if I remember correctly from damn near 20 years ago, he hated this adaptation so much he tried to have his name taken off of it. A very cursory Google search turns up an article from The Guardian from 2007 where Cussler sued the production company because they drastically altered the plot despite telling him he had final authority over the screenplay. I never read the book (I find Cussler too much of an Ian Fleming-wannabe) so I can't say how different it is. The movie is big and loud and silly and fun. Frankly, that's all it needed to be. It absolutely bombed at the box office but it's worth a rewatch at home.
It's currently streaming on Paramount+.
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