The Lost City review

March 24, 2022 Jeffrey Lyles Brad Pitt, Channing Tatum, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Daniel Radcliffe, Oscar Nuñez, Patti Harrison, Sandra Bullock, The Lost City

The Lost City is like an underachieving student everyone knows can and should do better. Instead, it’s content to coast on the charisma of its two stars. While the hope is to find some (box office) treasure, it’s a chest full of untapped potential. And executed better in its obvious inspiration.

Romance novelist Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock, Bird Box) is having major writer’s block. It’s been a prolonged one as Loretta has been grieving the loss of her husband for a few years. Her agent, Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dolemite Is My Name), is trying to keep Loretta stay motivated to finish the novel.

To get Loretta back in the public eye, Beth puts her on a book tour. There, Loretta’s reunited with her book’s cover model Alan (Channing Tatum, Free Guy). Loretta doesn’t have a lot of time for Alan as she’s long ago written him off as an empty pretty boy with washboard abs.

It doesn’t help that most of the tour attendees are more interested in seeing Alan — decked out in full Fabio mode with a long flowing blonde wig — lose his silk shirt. Loretta doesn’t know that Alan’s nursed a lengthy crush on her for years. What Alan lacks in scholarly knowledge, he does have a good heart and desire to be there for her.

That comes in handy sooner than they think as super billionaire Abigal Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe, Guns Akimbo) pitches Loretta on translating ancient scrolls to discover a lost treasure. When Loretta refuses, Abigail kidnaps her and journeys to an island where a potential historic discovery awaits.

Seeing this as an opportunity to be seen in a different light to Loretta, Alan calls his special forces pal, Jack (Brad Pitt in a fun, but brief cameo) to aid in a rescue mission. That doesn’t go exactly according to plan forcing Loretta and Alan to survive the jungle and Abigail’s men on their own.

There’s not a ton of action/comedy/romance films so this is a viable opportunity to do something relatively fresh. Sibling directors Aaron and Adam Nee (Band of Robbers) have the recipe for this genre. It’s just tweaking the formula popularized in the 80s with Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile.

When The Lost City is at its best, it channels the electric dynamic Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner had to spare. Bullock and Tatum are game. They’re no stranger to big physical comedy roles and they play off each other with ease.

Instead of making Alan a prototypical Indiana Jones type action hero, the script calls for Tatum to be more of a well-intentioned airhead. Think Chris Hemsworth in the 2016 Ghostbusters film.

It’s not hard to envision the outrage in 2022 if the roles were reversed and Bullock played the bimbo role…

Even in this concept, that premise isn’t sustainable. Alan gradually becomes more adept at survival despite being completely ineffective earlier. The Nee brothers probably could have struck a better balance to not make Alan come off like such a goofball earlier to make his action hero transition more believable.

That’s a minor issue. The biggest is how often the Nee brothers and co-screenwriters Dana Fox (Cruella) and Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat) take the focus off Bullock and Tatum. In most of those instances it’s to force some alleged comedy subplots.

Beth is a decent character, but her side quest to track down and rescue Loretta seems redundant and unnecessary. Randolph does what she can although it’s hard to salvage scenes where the punchlines land so flat. Patti Harrison has even less of a chance playing Loretta’s awkward social media manager.

Oscar Nuñez (The Proposal) has a weird role as a pilot whose best friend is a goat, he ferries in his cargo plane. He immediately takes an interest in Beth, who prefers to keep their partnership platonic.

Maybe these supporting characters would have worked better with better writing, but the script largely makes them insufferable distractions.

The Nee brothers capture the fun of a tropical adventure quest. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela (John Wick) showcases the natural beauty of the gorgeous Dominican Republic backdrop.

Bullock and Tatum can carry the film only so far, but the inconsistent tone and flat subplots drain too much fun to make The Lost City worth exploring.