Don’t Judge ‘The Lost City’ By Its Trailer
Starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Brad Pitt, Oscar Nuñez, Patti Harrison and Bowen Yang
Rated PG-13
Action, adventure, comedy
Run time: 1 hr, 52 min
Directed by Aaron and Adam Nee
In theaters March 25, 2022
Every time I saw the preview for this movie in theaters, I was super excited for a movie I fully anticipated to be a new “so bad it’s good” champion. Then I saw the reviews come out. And I was suspiciously intrigued by how highly it was spoken of, especially since it seemed like a relatively light, fluffy movie. That kind of thing doesn’t usually get noticed by critics, and it certainly doesn’t end up with a high Rotten Tomatoes score. Turns out, the numbers don’t lie and The Lost City wasn’t another secondhand-embarrassment mediocre adventure movie with such a stacked cast that it’s baffling. It’s funny, it has a coherent - although ridiculous - plot and the actors aren’t let down by having to use a stilted script. This film doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t, which really helps it excel. It wants to make you snicker, go along for the ride and feel sympathy for poor Sandra Bullock, who had to wear a magenta sequined bodysuit while traipsing all through the jungle.
One of the best things about this movie is its transparency. What you see in the trailer actually is what you get, but even better and not nearly as cheesy as you’d think. Bullock is a romance novelist with a love of history and archeology who is on a book tour for her latest installation of her insanely popular series. She’s joined by the Fabio-esque cover model played by Channing Tatum, but then something goes terribly awry. She’s kidnapped by an insanely rich man (Radcilffe) who is determined to find the “lost city of D” she writes about and recover treasure like no one’s ever seen before. Once her disappearance is discovered, Tatum joins forces with a “professional finder” (Pitt) to try to bring her home safe and sound. Needles to say, hijinks ensue.
It’s been a while since I got to see Sandra Bullock on the big screen, and this made her absence in film even more pronounced. She brings her now-patented killer comedic timing to this role and bounces perfectly off the other actors in the cast. The entire team working on screen have a chemistry that feels lived-in, something that is absolutely necessary for a successful comedy. What I wasn’t expecting was how much I loved seeing Daniel Radcliffe in a role that almost made me forget he was Harry Potter. He’s clearly loving portraying this slightly insane egomaniacal billionaire, and it helps sell the character that could have caused quite a few eye rolls if in the wrong hands. Tatum’s Alan is determined to prove he’s not just a pretty face, and he clearly connected to his character in that quest, and I think he succeeded.
The performance I loved most was actually Brad Pitt’s. We don’t often get to see him stretch his comedy muscle, but he is absolutely killing it in this film. He’s a total scene stealer, and even though I can never fully forget who the actors are while watching this, it’s a version of Pitt we haven’t fully seen before. This movie is utterly bonkers in the best way, and it pays homage to quite a few of its pop culture ancestors. There is a scene that feels straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean, some Indiana Jones inspiration and a hint of National Treasure. The Lost City feels like the soft launch of blockbuster season that seems to creep up earlier and earlier, and it’s making me cautiously optimistic about what the rest of summer 2022 will give us.