This is one of those sit-back-eat-your-popcorn-and-enjoy-the-action films that are popular at this time of the year (actually, starting next month). In many ways, it’s reminiscent of National Treasure, though, believe it or not, it’s nowhere near as intellectual a film …

Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConnaughey) and his more-than-a-simple-sidekick Steve (Al Giordino) are part of NUMA, an underwater treasure recovery operation headed by the ever-put-upon Admiral (ret.) James Sandekker (William H. Macy) which just happens to be operating off the Nigerian city of Lagos at the time that WHO investigator Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) arrives to check up on reports that there’s a new epidemic in town. She finds her epidemic and traces it back to the Republic of Mali. But someone wants to stop her, and when she is attacked by minions of the villain, French industrialist Yves Mansarde (Lambert Wilson), it takes Pitt to save her. Pitt also wants to take a vacation and go hunting a lost Confederate treasure ship which evidence suggests is to be found somewhere in the desert of Mali (even some of the characters in the film find this to be unlikely!), so the three of them set off on a roller-coaster ride up into the domain of yet another evildoer, the dictatorial General Kazim (Lennie James), who, in return for a payoff, has given Mansarde carte blanche to establish his solar-power-and-toxic-waste factory in the middle of the country. Much of the pleasure in the film comes from seeing how the heroes and heroine travel around from place to place (by speedboat up the Niger River, jeep, classic roadster straight out of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, crashed plane turned into windsailer, and fast camel — enjoy the usual chase after a train, but this time on camels, not on horses). Enjoy also the excellent cinematography from Spain and Morocco, where the film was largely made.

I found the subplot, in which Sandekker attempts to convince the US government that the industrial plant in Mali will quickly spell doom for the Atlantic Ocean, eminently unconvincing; after all, toxic waste doesn’t multiply like bacteria. Battle scenes involving the Confederate treasure ship, at both the beginning and (almost) the end of the film, were … well, “pleasant” is perhaps not the right word, but they pleased me. Whether the Touareg in the film resemble the real ones, I don’t know, but it’s good advertising for a people who have largely been ignored in the West …

Fast moving spring/summer fare, aimed at numbing the mind, not inspiring it. See it on that level and you’ll enjoy it.