Starring: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Brad Pitt, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Oscar Nunez
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 112 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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Academic and writer of pop action novels, Loretta Sage, is abducted by a deranged British billionaire wanting her to translate some hieroglyphics. The cover model sets out to rescue her, with all kinds of action and impossible adventures.
THE LOST CITY, US, 2022. Starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Brad Pitt, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Oscar Nunez. Directed by Aaron Nee, Andrew Nee. 112 minutes. Rated (can violence, crude humour and sexual references).
Lost cities in jungle settings. We have been there before, but we generally enjoy going there again.
Once upon a time, in fact 1981, there was an academic adventurer searching out relics of antiquity. Everyone knows Indiana Jones. Then, second upon a time, in fact 1984 and 1986, a couple set out on similar kinds of adventures, Romancing the Stone (and Jewel of the Nile). These 1980s adventure fantasies reinforced this genre.
And so, in 2022, former antiquity academic, with a talent for understanding hieroglyphics, who worked with her now deceased husband and is still grieving him, was persuaded to write a series of pot-boiling action adventures. Author Loretta Sage (Bullock) is about to set out on a promotions tour of her latest book. The audience is teased by a visualisation of the climax of the book, hero and heroine in a snakepit and then that particular ending deleted.
Loretta is reclusive, has no wish to go on tour but is sometimes literally pushed into action by her agent, Beth, a cheery performance from Randolph. The model, who has appeared on the cover of every book, also turns up for the launch with the audience’s only interest is seeing Dash, the dashing hero in blonde wig, shirt off… Actually, his real name is Alan (Tatum) effectively sending up his screen image with more than a touch of dumb, dumber, dumbest.
A lot could go wrong – and does. First, Loretta, dressed in a scarlet/crimson jumpsuit is abducted by a ruthless billionaire, (Radcliffe), the script taking advantage of his short stature and making him something of a pipsqueak villain. He has bought an island where he thinks there is hidden treasure and has some hieroglyphics which he wants Loretta to translate. Then, suddenly they are on the island, Loretta bound to a chair, translating, protesting.
Dash/Alan, wants to rescue Loretta and teams with Beth, contacting an expert, Jack Trainer who instantly locates Loretta flying to the rescue, and ensues one of the most action-packed attacks on the billionaire and his thugs. It is all is enhanced by the fact that Jack Trainer is played by Brad Pitt – looking as if he is auditioning for a new phase of Indiana Jones films. (And he is not in the film as much as we would like – but, a warning that audiences should not rush out at the first glimmer of final credits because he does reappear).
From then on, there is rescue, pursuit, dangers, cars over cliffs, shootings, escape by river, climbing mountains… And all the time, some banter between Loretta who is certainly not a cheerful soul and poor old Alan whom the screenplay seems to be typecasting as the dumb assistant and then, as he complains, the damsel in distress. Oh, and Beth is on her way for the rescue, encountering a cargo pilot who really fancies her, and he does turn up to help in the climax.
Radcliffe becomes more and more dastardly, recapturing Loretta, Alan in pursuit on a motorbike, by boat to some vast caves, exploration of the caves, a volcano threatening to explode…
A reviewer mentioned the word “cartoonish”. And that seems to be fairly accurate, it is very much a kind of live-action cartoon, action stretching the imagination, some silly situations, some dramatic situations, some comic bantering dialogue.
Which is probably what the audience for The Lost City were buying their tickets for.
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