'The Lost City' Review
Former rom-com queen Sandra Bullock returns to the genre in “The Lost City”. In real life Bullock is 16 years older than male love interest Channing Tatum. Such an age-gap is often a non-issue in the movie world, plus Bullock has down this path before, falling for 12-years-younger Ryan Reynolds in 2009’s “The Proposal”.
The age difference here (while noticeable) is far from the biggest problem with “The Lost City”. It’s the tired concept and unimaginative, uninteresting execution that make “The Lost City” a slog of an experience.
Bullock plays romance novel author Loretta Sage. Her latest tawdry tomb includes clues to a possible, actual ‘lost city’ on an exotic, remote island. And there’s buried treasure there. An evil billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) kidnaps Loretta so she can lead him to it.
Tatum plays Loretta’s longtime hunky cover model, Alan. He’s got a thing for her and so, as his character does in the books, he sets out to rescue her and then sweep her off her feet. But Alan isn’t very bright, so that plan only gets both of them into deeper trouble and into more idiotic situations. Tatum tries to revive the dopey sidekick comedic timing he had with Jonah Hill in the “Jump Street” films. He fails miserably.
“The Lost City” is also filled with mediocre supporting characters, played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, Oscar Nunez, Bowen Yang and even Brad Pitt. If his character wasn’t given away in the trailers, posters and promotional ads, maybe his appearance would have brought at least a smidge of fun. But even Pitt’s scenes are bereft of anything that could be remotely considered clever.
A mid-credits scene confirms the lack of confidence and conviction the writing team (including directors Adam and Aaron Nee) had with this project.
The first half of “The Lost City” is over-the-top unfunny. The second half is just plain boring. Together, this is an insult to audiences. Bullock and Tatum have zero chemistry together. This is a textbook case of stars simply going through the motions. And that includes the obvious, sloppy dialogue dubbing — a desperate, failed attempt to create some chuckles in post-production.
“The Lost City” is one of the dullest comedy adventure films in recent memory. For the sake of mankind, all copies should be flown to a remote island and buried — deep — in a tomb.
