The Lost City Review – The City Isn’t The Only Thing That’s Missing

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum pair up as unlikely heroes in The Lost City and I’m here to tell you if it’s worth watching in this review. If you aren’t already aware, the film is a comedy/action movie and releases in Malaysia cinemas today.

With that out of the way, let’s get into this review of The Lost City.

Story and Writing

The Lost City tells the story of Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) a romance/adventure novelist who gets kidnapped by billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe) who forces her to lead him to an ancient treasure from her novel. Her novel’s cover model, Alan (Channing Tatum) goes on a rescue mission to save her, which only results in misadventure.

It’s best not to take The Lost City too seriously. It’s a rather simple, straightforward and predictable story about two unlikely main characters who overcome their weaknesses and personal struggles and end up saving the day. While Loretta and Alan do grow by the end of the movie, all the characters in the film—them included—are written to be very one-dimensional and basically behave the same from start to finish.

Since this is a comedy, I can forgive the film lacklustre story somewhat. What I find hard to forgive is the humour, which isn’t done very well. Of course, humour is subjective. Personally, I feel that the funny parts were too cringy and corny. Quite often, I found the punchlines to be a bit too crude and predictable. Throughout the movie, I was feeling awkward and cringed instead of laughing.

There were others in the cinema with me who were laughing, but I realised that the laughter mostly consisted of older cinemagoers. Maybe it’s the age gap, but as someone in his 20s, I do get the feeling that my parents might find The Lost City funnier than me. 

Performance

This is easily the strongest aspect of the film. You have a star-studded cast that includes the likes of Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe and Brad Pitt. While I blame the writing, I respect the actors and actresses for delivering strong performances.

Even though everyone was written very one-dimensionally, I feel that the cast carried out their roles to the best of their abilities. The acting does feel very “in your face” and not subtle as a result, but everyone is very expressive and theatrical, so even though the jokes don’t land for me, I still enjoyed watching the actors perform.

The best example to highlight this is Daniel Radcliffe, who plays an eccentric billionaire. He looks and acts EXACTLY like the same billionaire he played in Now You See Me 2. He’s very over the top and is probably the most cliché character out of everyone else, but he’s still fun to watch since it’s Harry Potter acting like a stereotypical bad guy whose superpower is being rich.

Visuals and Sound

The Lost City mainly takes place in a jungle on some island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. For the majority of the film, the most eye-catching thing is Sandra Bullock’s purple sequin bodysuit. It exemplifies the “out of place” nature that is so prevalent throughout the film.

Overall the film is very bright and colourful, which does a good job of creating the lighthearted atmosphere needed for this kind of comedy. It’s just that the execution is poor.

In terms of sound, a lot of times in the movie, the jokes weren’t really working because it relies too much on the music. Many a time, humour will be set up in one scene, but then when it cuts to the next, awkward unfitting music will be played for comedic effect. Personally, I feel that this method is quite cheap, since the music is there to try and make up for the weak writing.

For example, when Alan rides in to Loretta, “The Final Countdown” would play. I get it—it makes the scene “feel funnier” (I say feel, because it’s not actually funny). As a result, the film feels like it’s trying too hard to be funny and just ends up turning me off.

Closing Thoughts

That’s all for this review of The Lost City. As a comedy-action movie, it’s very “hit or miss” with its humour. Thankfully, its star-studded cast helped to keep the film from being boring. Ultimately, even though it’s not a great movie, it’s still worth watching if you love Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt or the other cast members as they perform larger than life roles. 

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