The Lost City – Movie Review
112 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by Oren Uziel, Dana Fox, and Adam Nee
Directed by Aaron Nee and Adam Nee
**NOTE: this post will be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, enjoy this brief look at my thoughts. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
A reclusive romance novelist on a book tour with her cover model gets swept up in a kidnapping attempt that lands them both in a cutthroat jungle adventure.
I’ll be honest here: going into this one, I wasn’t completely unconvinced this wasn’t going to simply be a silly remake/remix of the classic Romancing the Stone, starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in the roles here being reinhabited by Sandra Bullock and Chaning Tatum.
And I thought I’d be upset about it.
As it turns out, I was both right and wrong; this is a half-baked remake of RTS, but that’s what it’s supposed to be. All of the adventure of that original film, with its longing sense of will-they/won’t-they romance, here is replaced with silly, juvenile, just-racy-enough-to-still-draw-a-PG-13-rating humor that feels very 2022.
Sure, I can’t see the jokes here I couldn’t see coming out of Kathleen and Michael’s characters; Loretta Sage and cover-model Alan aren’t Joan Wilder and Jack Colton (whose character is more replaced by Brad Pitt’s “Jack Trainer” than Channing’s Alan, BTW), but for these characters in the world the script gives us, it works.
What doesn’t work is the adventure itself. The treasure they wind up searching for (courtesy of Daniel Radcliffe’s villain) is a “pretty deep metaphor,” but like the recent Uncharted treasure hunt, the clues are lame, and the final location is so incredibly obvious and unhidden as to make the entire quest seem pointless, except in terms of the “deep metaphor.”
But even after all that, The Lost City works as a bit of diversionary fun, playing off the all-too-effective and easy chemistry between Bullock and Tatum, which is really the only draw you need for a film like this.
As an aside, having seen this film so soon after Dog, I kind of have a new respect for Tatum as an actor. Sandra Bullock is, of course, radiant as always.
The Lost City hits theaters this Friday, March 25.
The Lost City stars Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Brad Pitt, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, Oscar Nunez, and Hector Anibal.
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