The Lost City
Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum team up in a sporadically amusing romantic adventure that suffers from déjà vu.
The jungle kooks: Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock is Loretta Sage, a best-selling romantic novelist still recovering from the death of her husband, a world-class archaeologist. She has lost the excitement for her craft, merely adhering to her deadlines to appease her gung-ho publisher (Da'Vine Joy Randolph). She now feels that she is above the gaudy media circus that accompanies the publication of her latest novel, The Lost City of D. But she is contracted to promote it and to share the stage with Alan Caprison (Channing Tatum), a cover model who has come to personify the face (and body) of her dashing protagonist Dash McMahon. Loretta would rather lie in the bath sipping iced chardonnay than dream up another ludicrous adventure – let alone face the real world. Then she is kidnapped by an eccentric English billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) and Alan dashes off to rescue her… into the jungle.
Tapping into the comic high-jinks vibe of Romancing the Stone, The Lost City is a curiously old-fashioned beast. But before it goes all Indiana Jones, it takes us on a chucklesome ride that should appeal both to the fans of Bullock and of Tatum. For a start, it is refreshing to see a leading man whose romantic foil is older than he is (by sixteen years, no less), while there’s plenty of comic mileage mined from the supporting cast, from Loretta's social media manager (Patti Harrison) to Daniel Radcliffe’s affable and eternally upbeat villain who would undoubtedly fail the cattle call as an 007 nemesis. This is smart casting-against-type. But it’s Brad Pitt’s super-cool, ruthlessly efficient Jack Trainor who wins the most laughs for playing his mercenary absolutely straight. He deserves a movie to himself.
From the outset, Tatum’s Alan is made out to be a complete meathead, a poor intellectual equal to the woman he idolizes. He is cast in what used to be the female role, a beautiful torso with no emotional depth who just gets in the way of the real heroics. When, during a moment of pique he compares Loretta to a “human mummy”, she corrects him by saying that mummies are human. The joke is meant to be on him. But, no offence to the four scriptwriters, it has been estimated that seventy million animals were mummified by the Egyptians. Alan also offers to take Loretta to ancient Greece, which she dismisses as an impossibility. Still, much of ancient Greece is still visited by tourists in their droves.
Had The Lost City based more of its shenanigans in reality, the film’s second half should have proved more engaging. But Bullock is a natural comedian and Tatum has a high old time poking fun at his pin-up image. And it’s a step up from Romancing the Stone, which was about a best-selling romance novelist who finds herself stuck in the jungle (in high heels) in a kidnapping plot – and is rescued by a man.
Perfect, then, for a bit of escapism for both genders over the weekend.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Brad Pitt, Oscar Nunez, Patti Harrison, Bowen Yang, Joan Pringle, Héctor Aníbal, Thomas Forbes-Johnson, Olga Bucarelli, Adam Nee, Raymond Lee.
Dir Adam Nee and Aaron Nee, Pro Sandra Bullock, Liza Chasin and Seth Gordon, Screenplay Oren Uziel, Dana Fox, Adam Nee and Aaron Nee, Ph Jonathan Sela, Pro Des Jim Bissell, Ed Craig Alpert, Music Pinar Toprak, Costumes Marlene Stewart, Sound Kami Asgar and Benjamin L. Cook.
Fortis Films/3dot Productions/Exhibit A-Paramount Pictures.
112 mins. USA. 2022. US Rel: 25 March 2022. UK Rel: 15 April 2022. Cert. 12A.
