THE LOST CITY : Tuesday 7th June 2022

I saw the M Rated 'THE LOST CITY' at my local multiplex this week some seven weeks after its release date in Australia of 14th April. This American action adventure comedy film is Co-Written and Directed by Adam and Aaron Nee whose previous feature film credits take in their debut offering in 2006 with 'The Last Romantic' and 'Band of Robbers' in 2015. This film saw its World Premier at South by Southwest in mid-March before its cinema release Stateside at the end of March, having so far grossed US$186M off the back of a US$68M production budget and garnering mixed or average Reviews along the way.

Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock, who also Co-Produces here) is an acclaimed author who writes fictional romantic-adventure novels based around a heroine, Dr. Angela Lovemore (also played by Sandra Bullock), and her romantic interest, Dash McMahon (Channing Tatum). To promote the latest and twentieth book in the series, her publisher, Beth Hatten (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), insists that Loretta embark on a book tour with Alan Caprison (also played by Channing Tatum), the book's cover model for Dash, despite her reclusiveness since the death of her husband. Sage has grown tired of turning out 'schlock' novels featuring Lovemore and McMahon despite the obvious benefits that the trappings of her success has brought her, and so she decides it's time to kill off Dash. On the book tour, Dash is asked to remove his shirt by several women in the audience, much to Sage's chagrin, and needless to say their exploits onstage does not end well for either of them.

And so, following a less than successful start to their book tour Loretta is kidnapped by Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), a billionaire who has deduced that Loretta based her books on actual historic research conducted with her late archaeologist husband. He discovered a lost city on a remote island in the Atlantic and is convinced the 'Crown of Fire', a priceless crown of sixty encrusted red diamonds, is located there. When she declines to help decipher part of an ancient map believed to pinpoint the treasure, Fairfax, fearing an active volcano will destroy the site within days potentially, chloroforms and takes Loretta to the island aboard his private jet. 

Alan, who is secretly infatuated with Loretta, witnesses her kidnapping. He recruits Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), a former Navy SEAL turned CIA operative and now a seemingly one man army for hire, whom he met at a mind and body retreat to connect with one's inner being, to meet him on the island and coordinate a rescue. Jack, with absolutely no help from Alan, breaches Fairfax's compound and overcome's many of Fairfax's henchmen singlehandedly in close quarter hand to hand combat, and frees Loretta, but is shot in the head before they can make it to the airport, forcing Loretta and Alan to flee into the jungle.

After leaving Alan where he fell, and fleeing in his Baja Qute car which ends up falling over a cliff, and then camping out in a hammock overnight, Loretta and Alan spend the next day fending off Fairfax's henchmen before reaching a nearby village, where Loretta calls Beth and leaves a message for her to tell her she's alive, and Alan dances with the locals. Upon hearing an old folk song from a local, Loretta deduces that the crown is hidden in a sinkhole somewhere in the jungle. Before they can leave however, Fairfax captures her again. Alan gives chase to save Loretta on a old motorcycle that he traded his wrist watch for, and catches them up. The pair then fight and struggle to gain the upper hand, before  being forced to share the treasure's location with Fairfax.

Upon reaching the location within the sinkhole, they discover the tomb is not a monument to Taha and Calaman's power, but a hiding place for the queen to grieve over her husband. Her Crown of Fire was made of red seashells gathered by him as a sign of his love for her. The actual treasure of the legend was not a priceless diamond encrusted jewel but the inseparable love between the king and his queen. Angered beyond belief, Fairfax forces Loretta and Alan into the tomb and closes it firmly shut as the volcano erupts, but Rafi (Hector Anibal), one of the henchmen and an island local, has a change of heart and leaves a crowbar to help them escape. Running ahead of Fairfax to escape the molten lava floe, Rafi abandons Fairfax on the island by heading off on his motor boat. Beth arrives with the local coast guard and rescues Loretta and Alan who swam underwater through a series of tunnels to safety, and Fairfax is duly arrested having been picked up looking lost and innocent. Loretta's next book, based on her adventure with Alan, is a hit, as they kiss at the end of their next book tour. 

Remain in your seat for a mid-credits sequence in which Jack, having survived the bullet to his head and having been presumed very dead, attends a yoga class with Loretta and Alan, surprising them both. 

'The Lost City' is almost an updated version of 1984's 'Romancing the Stone' with Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito and so in that respect this film offers up nothing particularly new that we haven't seen before. However, that said, this film will be aimed at a whole new audience unfamiliar with that earlier film, and in that respect the chemistry that obviously exists between Bullock, Tatum, Radcliffe and Pitt (for the brief scenes that the latter plays out) helps elevate this feature above the also-rans. The script is a little thin on the ground, but the sense of humour and the quips often delivered in dead-pan fashion make up for this, while some of sweeping vistas of the Dominican Republic (where this movie was filmed) all add up to a film that is greater than the sum of its parts. Sure, its not going to reinvent the action adventure Rom-Com genre but it does at least provide a satisfying screwball comedy that reminds us why we go to the movies.

'The Lost City' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-