Review of the movie The Lost City (2022)

'The Lost City': a fun adventure at the service of Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in which Brad Pitt steals the show with his special appearance

Adventure cinema experienced a small boom in Hollywood after the premiere of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. Among the many who tried to drink from the success of Indiana Jones, 'After the Green Heart' is probably the most outstanding film that was released during the 80s. Its success was such that just a year later its sequel 'The Jewel of the Nile' was released. , but, although there was talk at different stages of a possible third installment, the saga never went beyond that.

Now Hollywood has clearly drunk from the film directed in 1984 by Robert Zemeckis to shape 'The Lost City', a vehicle for the showcasing of Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum that this Wednesday, April 13, arrives in Spanish cinemas. It does so with the intention of making the viewer have a good time, and it succeeds despite the fact that it is not particularly memorable either.

A mix of genres with a predilection for comedy

'The lost city' plays to mix comedy, adventure and romance, a cocktail that we have not seen too much lately, so, at least a priori, something like that is always appreciated. That said, the order I have chosen to arrange them is no accident, as that is exactly their order of importance. Above all, it is a comedy, in which adventure has a strong presence, while romance is relegated to last place.

In fact, that is something that is perceived from its funny prologue with the protagonist having serious problems to finish her new novel. That game with fiction within fiction is very nice and also serves to place the viewer within the dynamics that the character played by Bullock is currently going through.

The first act serves to briskly and effectively organize all the elements around her before embarking on an adventure similar to the one in her books. It is until then that 'The Lost City' is more reminiscent of 'After the Green Heart', a feeling that never goes away but does fade a bit as the events outlined by the script by Oren Uziel, Dana Fox, Adam Nee and Aaron Nee, these last two also directors.

One of the big deviations is the main male character, since 'The Lost City' turns Tatum into a poor bastard who doesn't really know what he's up against. To do this, he even plays brilliantly by introducing a hilarious Brad Pitt, the best of the show by far, by way of contrast, being in those minutes when the film is more daring in what he can and cannot do.

In its own way, it could be said that there is an obvious parallelism between Kathleen Turner in 'After the Green Heart' and Bullock here, while the character of Michael Douglas does not have such a clear equivalent in the film at hand. That leads to the dynamic between the protagonists of 'The Lost City' being different and focusing more on how unlikely it is that they will be able to face the elements when under normal conditions they should be caught at the first opportunity.

Functional and compliant

That is what leads 'The Lost City' to the comedy being in the foreground during the first two thirds of the footage, to the point that the peculiar villain played by Daniel Radcliffe comes to give the feeling of being a poor wimp instead of a series threat to take into consideration.

The big consequence of all this is that 'The Lost City' tends to lean heavily on the chemistry between Bullock and Tatum. Here the visual component of the adventure is not so important, where the Nee brothers are competent but without offering any particularly remarkable scene or shot in that way, as that everything has enough agility and lightness for the viewer to buy what is happening.

Against it plays that it may be a little too long for what it proposes. It is not that there is anything in particular that clashes negatively, but perhaps the adventures of the two protagonists could have been lightened a little more or eliminated all the part of their agent beyond the start.

All in all, nothing really remains, but there comes a time when the rhythm suffers a bit, being a shame that it happens just when 'The Lost City' should put all the meat on the grill. What is a pity is that it ends up settling for not leaving the mold or the formula of its predecessors, but as such it is very enjoyable.