The Lost City – Film Review

Reclusive author Loretta Sage writes about exotic places in her popular adventure novels that feature a handsome cover model named Alan. While on tour promoting her new book with Alan, Loretta gets kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire who hopes she can lead him to an ancient city’s lost treasure from her latest story. Determined to prove he can be a hero in real life and not just on the pages of her books, Alan sets off to rescue her.Dan

After watching countless ads on television and even in the movie theatre for Adam and Aaron Nee’s The Lost City, I was dreading the day when I’d eventually have to watch it. It looked like an absolutely awful, terribly written, and cameo-filled mess. Fast-forward to today when I actually ended up watching it…

Huh. Thirty minutes in and… wait a minute? It’s not bad at all? What a surprise! The Lost City is a shockingly funny adventure action film that is sure to whisk you away for about two hours, even if the concept isn’t executed nearly as thoughtfully as one would hope.

The goal of this movie is to simply make us laugh. There are four screenwriters behind this project, and I don’t need to be the one to tell you that’s a lot of people for just one story. But it feels surprisingly consistent throughout. The humor doesn’t always land, but when it does, it’s quite great. There is one scene in particular that had me laughing quite hard.

Where the movie starts to get a little bit boring is in the second act. Things get uninteresting and for some reason, the film tends to focus incredibly heavily on a romantic subplot that doesn’t really feel all that engaging or earned. Maybe if the script had fleshed it out more it would’ve been much more welcomed.

Something I loved in this movie were all of the performances. Literally, all of them. Channing Tatum is well known for portraying super muscular tough guys while also being funny. Here, he’s just funny. It’s so jarring to see Tatum play a bumbling idiot, and shockingly, he pulls it off super well.

But thankfully, that’s not the only thing his character has going for him. The script does give him quite a bit of good material to work with so he’s not just playing a one-note character. Sandra Bullock is, as always, amazing. Here, she portrays Loretta Sage, a super successful romance novelist who reluctantly goes on a mission with Tatum’s character.

Together, the two have wonderful chemistry – honestly, some of the best of the entire year so far. Also great here is Brad Pitt in a short but sweet role, and Daniel Radcliffe portraying a villain which will never not be weird considering he played Harry Potter, who, as I’m sure you all know, is one of the most popular heroes.

The Lost City isn’t a game-changer by any means, but it did remind me of the days when we actually used to get legitimately good studio comedies. I miss those days. If anything, this movie is a step in the right direction.