‘Are you trying to be sexy? This is very weird. Please stop...’
You don’t see many adventure movies these days. The Lost City sits snugly alongside stuff like Indiana Jones, National Treasure and the Jumanji franchise whilst being just different enough to stand on its own two feet…
Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) is a reclusive novelist who, along with her cover star Alan (Channing Tatum), becomes embroiled in a kidnapping plot based around an eccentric billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) and a cutthroat jungle.
I often bang on about Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks and their ability to carry a film. It’s time to give Sandra Bullock some love. It’s almost thirty years since she starred in Demolition Man. Since then, she has conquered action movies (Speed), romcoms (While You Were Sleeping), comedy (Miss Congeniality), sports (The Blind Side), horror (Bird Box) and sci-fi (Gravity). She’s basically one porno and one kung fu movie away from completing the set. The Lost City marks her first out and out adventure movie, and as ever, she’s wonderful. Funny. Naturalistic. Classic Bullock.
I have also been known to give Channing Tatum a hard time on occasion. I’m not convinced by him as a serious actor, but he has shown that he can do comedy on numerous occasions, and to give him his due, he’s great here as the world’s worst action hero. It helps that an early cameo alongside Brad Pitt helps him to find his feet. Indeed, the acting across the board is enjoyable, Radcliffe is now old enough to convince as a moustache twirling villain, and he has a lot of fun with it here, enjoying a suitably snarky chemistry with Bullock along the way.
All in all, The Lost City is a little too derivative to go down as a classic of the genre, but there is no denying that at its best, this is an irresistible slice of family fun. Well worth a look.