‘The Lost City’: A Crowd-Pleasing Comedic Hit
Rating: ★★★★
“The Lost City” is a well-crafted adventure-comedy perfect for casual viewing. Though by no means transcendent, “The Lost City” lives on the excellent timing of its jokes while giving surprisingly insightful commentary on the adventure genre. Though not a full parody, the film’s self-awareness allows for moments of true hilarity while leaving room for heartfelt scenes. Throughout the film, there were genuine moments of laughter from the audience in the theater. I believe this movie is one of the best comedies of the year so far and one that I would highly recommend.
The film centers around Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), a romance novel writer who has lost passion for her best-selling “The Lost City of D” romance series after publishing what she hopes will be her final novel. After studying archaeology in college, Loretta is disheartened that she resorted to writing romance novels about an explorer rather than pursuing her dream of exploring ancient ruins and finding lost cities herself. Despite this internal conflict, her books are widely popular, thanks in no small part to Alan Caprison (Channing Tatum), the model for the series’ book covers and the highlight of Sage’s book tour, which opens the film.
Spurring the plot along, Sage is kidnapped by the villain of the film, Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), a billionaire scion who seeks to discover The Crown of Fire — a legendary, presumably priceless artifact — on a remote Atlantic island and believes that Sage can help with this because of her knowledge of the culture. When Sage refuses to help him, Fairfax forcibly takes her to the island, prompting Caprison to go and attempt a rescue.
The film’s greatest strength is that it never takes itself too seriously, and the script is clearly very self aware of the ridiculousness of the plot. The first portion of the rescue centers around Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), Caprison’s trainer and ex-Navy SEAL who Alan hires to save Sage. Trainer is clearly a parody of the tough guy, ex-military, spiritual guru persona. The filmmakers' decision to make his character take himself so seriously in trying to rescue Sage, while simultaneously mocking the absurdity of the character, is brilliant. His infiltration scene of Fairfax’s compound was one of the funniest moments in the whole movie.
The movie itself is also a satire of the traditional adventure film and clearly ridicules some of the genre’s tropes. For example, at the end of the film, Sage saves Caprison rather than falling into the ‘damsel in distress’ trope. Instead of feeling forced, this reversal is executed in a genuinely heartwarming way.
Bullock is the true star of the film as Sage. Her performance excels throughout both the comedic and the more serious moments. She sets the tone of the whole film, proving her caliber as one of the top actresses working today.
Even though Bullock carries much of the film, Channing Tatum’s performance as Caprison is excellent, and he provides a strong romantic interest for Bullock’s character. Their chemistry is palpable and the two actors play quite well off of each other.
Opposite Bullock and Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe delivers a skillful portrayal of Fairfax, who satirizes the classic film character of a wealthy man commissioning an expedition. The audience senses that Fairfax is willing to go to extreme lengths to reach his goals, effectively adding suspense to the story.
The script is very well paced — at a brisk runtime of 1 hour and 52 minutes, the movie feels almost too short. There is no doubt that “The Lost City” is a satisfying watch and it will leave you laughing out of the theater.
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