The Lost City | Director: Aaron & Adam Nee | Rating: 7.5/11 |
It’s been a minute since Sandra Bullock has graced us with another one of her oh-so-perfect romantic comedies. Ironically, the last one we recall is 2009’s The Proposal where she played Margaret Tate a book publisher, a role not too far removed from her character in The Lost City. While she may no longer be a book publisher, Bullock’s role as Loretta Sage the romance novelist makes us wonder if Margaret would’ve published her, but I digress.
The Lost City centers on Loretta Sage, a dissatisfied middle-aged woman who hasn’t been the same since her husband passed. Her archeological interests she passionately followed with her husband aren’t good enough for commercial success, so she employs fantasy into her studies to create best-selling romance adventure novels. This eventually leads to Loretta being kidnapped for her skill set in translating an ancient language, and the only person coming to her rescue is her dimwitted book cover model with zero survival skills, Dash (Channing Tatum).
If you don’t expect a lot from The Lost City, you’ll get the most wonderful surprise of the year (thus far). It’s one of those films where you can’t specifically remember why you enjoyed it, you only take away a feeling of joy and the memory of a belly laugh or three. Which is perfect for a film of this caliber. Feeling like an updated Romancing The Stone at times, The Lost City is what The Jungle Cruise wishes it could be.
Bullock shines brightly throughout this film, and is the glue keeping the story together. Magic Mike fans will have enough eye candy to last the year as Tatum delivers plenty of fan service. However, the chemistry between Jack (Brad Pitt) and Loretta is much stronger than any on-screen chemistry Bullock shares with Tatum. Perhaps with enough vocalization we could see a Brad Pitt/Sandra Bullock rom-com in the future.
The biggest disappointment came from Daniel Radcliffe’s performance as Fairfax. Maybe if his vocal cadence, infliction, tone or accent has been tweaked slightly we could’ve accepted this eccentric billionaire turned jealous bad guy. However, and we hate to typecast, all that was seen was Harry Potter in the wrong movie (sorry Daniel!). Hopefully in his next role as Weird Al in WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story Radcliffe will fully transform.
At the end of the day, The Lost City is a solid B movie. A film that would’ve brought out the masses back when IPs didn’t rule the cinema, but instead blockbuster names did. Here’s hoping there’s still power in these names as we continue our global return to the cinemas because everyone could use watching a feelgood film like this.