REVIEWED - SAHARA: 'ADVENTURE has a new destination" declares the poster for this risible, pointlessly protracted yarn. The setting is the republic of Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world, which, we are told, has been taken over by an avaricious dictator, General Kazim (Lennie James), whose nuclear plant has polluted the water, causing a plague that is killing off the population.

The people are helpless, of course, without the intervention of some cool, clean white heroes, who are led by daredevil treasure hunter Dirk Pitt, blandly played by Matthew McConaughey with so much sunburn that he looks more orange than white. The recurring central character in over a dozen Clive Cussler novels, Pitt tirelessly traverses the globe in search of lost artefacts, and he is drawn as a supposedly charming and infinitely resourceful adventurer - essentially a lowbrow hybrid of Indiana Jones and James Bond.

Pitt is seeking out an American Civil War battleship that has somehow turned up in the Sahara desert when he is distracted by the plight of the Mali people. He becomes their saviour with the help of his obligatory zany sidekick (Steve Zahn), a seasoned globetrotter who still doesn't know how to ask for the bill in French, and the World Health Organisation's most beautiful and caring doctor (Penelope Cruz), who remains perfectly coiffured even in the most sand-swept action sequences.

There is one shady white character, inevitably European and played with a sneer by French actor Lambert Wilson, who admirably manages a straight face when he remarks that General Kazim "put the war back into warlord". Kazim is not the smartest of despots, however, given that none of his army appears to have had the most basic shooting practice. For all its strength in numbers and masses of artillery, the army consistently misses the few white foes in its line of fire.

"Don't worry," says Kazim. "It's Africa. Nobody cares about Africa." And that cynicism is amply illustrated in a patronising picture that regards Mali as nothing more than an exotic but threatening backdrop that's safely far away.

Handsomely photographed by Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey on Moroccan and Spanish locations, Sahara is tiresomely formulaic and populated by cardboard characters. It marks an inauspicious cinema debut for its director, Breck Eisner, son of Michael, the departing head of Disney's film division.