I just saw this movie tonight and I have to say I really liked it. It was a nice little action film but I think what impressed me most was the supporting characters weren't idiots.

The best friend side kick? Not bumbling or inept and very capable of being a major help. In fact, bigger hero than the main man, IMHO. Dude, he found and defused a major bomb, by himself, while the other guy ran off to save the girl. I'm talking about the character played by Steve Zahn by the way.

Secondary sidekick, the geeky computer guy from the treasure hunter team. He's a patented nerd but, even though he's not survival trained like everyone else, he makes it out of a war zone in the desert regions of Africa on foot and reaches the rest of the group to tell them what happened. He uses his brain to get out of there, so it's not like he's suddenly MacGyver to survive either.

The book was better. I have read just about all of Dirk Pitt's adventures. Good popcorn reading (with the history bits).

Omnae speaks truth. I liked the movie when I saw it, but the book was by far much more enjoyable.

ohh didn't know there were books...

There are almost always movies that have book. And the books are almost always better. IE Harry Potter, Sahara, Flight of the Phenix, and so on and so on. Also the SW books were a Hell of a lot better than their movie counter-parts.

I agree there... Shmi was a much more interesting character when you got to read what she was thinking...

Now, was Anakin force-concepted by Palpatine, or was Shmi just making something up? I read something on both in those books.
Also, isn't Shmi kinda buried in Luke's yard?

The former two questions I don't have an answer to, the latter is "yes."

There are a whole series of books regarding the "Adventures of Dirk Pitt". The author is Clive Cussler. There is an older movie that featured the character Dirk Pitt and was based on another novel of Cussler's called: Raise the Titanic.