The Lost City: Romancing Yet Another Stone, Bullock and Tatum Bring Back the 'Romp'
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
It’s surprising that the only reference to Fabio in the action-romance The Lost City comes near the end. It’s the umpteenth dig at Alan (Channing Tatum), a cover-model for a hit series of romance novels, who’s stumbled his way into actual adventure.
Known as “Dash” to the millions of breathless fans of passion-peddling novelist Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), the lunk-headed pop icon is as much Zoolander as Fabio.
And the fact that those two references are decades old underscores the fact that the amiable The Lost City is a genial homage to a genre that has all but disappeared. Think Romancing the Stone or the Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weiss version of The Mummy.
They are movies, “romps” if you will, that are remembered fondly, even though most people would be hard-pressed to remember exactly what they were about.
Romanced stones aside, they were about actors who meshed easily playing characters who bantered and bickered while becoming accidental bad-asses, their initial annoyance at each other morphing into mutual attraction along the way.
You can’t write this kind of movie. What is there to write except wisecracks and a MacGuffin plot?
Like its forebears, what makes The Lost City work is the chemistry of its leads. Bullock and Tatum are universally liked and likeable. The seamlessness of their team-up is evident in the fact that almost every scripted line sounds like they came up with it on the spot.
(Sample exchange, when Alan accuses Loretta of “mansplaining” to him. Loretta: “I’m a woman. I can’t mansplain!” Alan: “Yeah? Well, I’m a feminist. And I believe a woman can do anything she wants.”)
Heck, even the villain in The Lost City, Daniel Radcliffe is inherently likeable (or at least not menacing), as is Brad Pitt, who plays a New Age mercenary who starts the rescue ball rolling.
As The Lost City opens, Loretta is releasing a new (and disappointing) new book, The Lost City of D, and is fully aware that at every public appearance, she will be upstaged by her doofus cover model, who will end up shirtless.
An ex-archeologist and a still-grieving widow, she has channeled her insights into sex-driven potboiler adventure stories, for which she no longer has any enthusiasm. This, she declares, will be her last book.
Except that a billionaire’s twerp son gone rogue (Radcliffe), given the “boy-named-Sue” curse by being named Abigail Fairfax, has discovered actual clues to an actual lost city and treasure within Loretta’s breathless prose. Ostensibly driven by jealousy of a younger brother who inherited the financial empire, he dispenses of niceties and has his henchmen kidnap Loretta and take her to a Caribbean island to search for the legendary Crown of Fire.
With the help of a “Find My Apple Watch” app, Alan and mercenary Jack Trainer (Pitt) follow, for what turns out to be a rather slapdash rescue attempt, one in which the bad guys turn out to be as inept as the good guys.
Meanwhile, back home, Loretta’s take-no-prisoners agent Beth (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) and her social media manager (Patti Harrison), do what they can – or not.
It’s a lot of nonsense, window dressing around an extended banter contest that is surprisingly entertaining. There is no pretension in what The Lost City is or what it’s trying to do, other than entertain an audience for slightly under two hours. It has one job, and it does it well.
The Lost City. Directed Aaron Nee and Adam Nee. Starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe. Opens in theatres, Friday, March 25.