The Lost City is a jungle adventure in the spirit of Romancing the Stone and others in the genre, but its ingredients are lost (no pun intended) in a story that feels much more content on being dull rather than giving us anything fresh or original.
Sandra Bullock stars as Loretta Sage, a widowed writer of romance novels. She’s on tour promoting her latest book with her cover model Alan who goes by Dash (Channing Tatum). Dash is an obvious Fabio ripoff and he remains consistently clueless that’s he’s not really the character he portrays.
Daniel Radcliffe costars as Abigail Fairfax, a billionaire who’s in search of a lost city Loretta has created. He believes it’s real and wants to use her expertise to find it.
Dash makes the mistake of thinking Loretta’s been kidnapped and goes on a quest to find her. However, he can’t do it alone so he calls on the services of a Navy Seal turned CIA agent (Brad Pitt). Pitt’s character is one of the few bright spots in the movie. He has the self-awareness to know what he is and how farcical he can play the role and not come off as annoying.
Eventually, Dash reaches up to Loretta and they spend the rest of the movie evading Fairfax in order to see if the lost city is in fact real or just an elaborate hoax.
Bullock and Tatum do have nice chemistry and I could tell they clearly had more fun making the movie than I did watching it. That’s a sad state of affairs because here’s a movie that’s well-made and I wish they were given more to do with a solid script.
The tone is inconsistent throughout most of the movie. When the two stars are stranded together and attempt to be funny, it falls flat. When we know there’s romance on the horizon, we can sense it before they can. When the action scenes kick in, they aren’t very exciting or memorable.
There’s one actor who helps kick the movie into a higher gear to escape the velocity, but unfortunately, that actor doesn’t get the chance to shine and more of that performance would’ve benefited the movie.
As it is, The Lost City is nothing more than a lost (pun intended) opportunity.
Grade: C+
(Rated PG-13 for violence and some bloody images, suggestive material, partial nudity and language.)
