The Lost City

A few weeks ago, a new adventure film, The Lost City released in theaters. The Lost City stars Sandra Bullock as the romance novelist Lorretta on a book tour with her cover model Alan played by Channing Tatum. Lorretta is soon kidnapped by millionaire Abigail Fairfax played by Daniel Radcliff so she can be forced to help him find the treasure of the Lost City of D. With Alan as the only one who can help her, the duo must escape from Fairfax and navigate the jungle back to safety.

This movie was a very pleasant surprise. I expected a fairly generic adventure movie with some comedy sprinkled in but having the trailer showing the funniest parts of the movie. This was not the case at all with the film proving to be a lot of fun and adding a new twist on a familiar story as well as a lot of funny moments. Generally in these types of movies, there is one main character that is the "jungle expert" who needs to pull the other along. This movie turns that on its head and makes it so neither character has experience dealing in the jungle which makes the typical jungle adventure experiences even funnier. Every time the movie seems to be going into familiar territory for the genre, something will happen or some joke will play that will turn the situation around into a more unique experience making it a lot more interesting to watch. As a whole, this movie is very funny, with quite a few laugh-out-loud moments. I also never realized how funny Channing Tatum was. He made me laugh quite a few times throughout the film. There are also a few scene stealers, The cargo pilot, Lorretta's social media manager, and Brad Pitt's Character that make whatever scene they are in just great. None of those characters are in the film a lot but they just make whatever scene they are in some of the best in the film. Finally, this film can balance comedy, romance, and adventure super well so that fans of all those genres can stay interested. I am not a big romance fan but love adventure movies and my wife is not a big adventure fan but loves romance films. We both found this movie a lot of fun and didn't find that either genre overpowered the other. It was a great date movie for the two of us.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that didn't sit as well with me. The first is that the villain, Daniel Radcliff, is just super generic. His character is just an evil rich guy that wants treasure and more money. No real defining motivation or traits that make him stand out and nothing about him that makes him threatening or funny. The other issue I had was the publicist Beth's plot felt a little unnecessary. Every time the movie shifted to her story, it just felt out of place and didn't add much of anything to the story outside of introducing the cargo pilot character. The film could have not included the subplot in it and the movie would have happened pretty much the same.

Overall, this movie was a lot of fun, putting a bit of a new spin on a familiar genre. Outside of a few hiccups, it makes for a great movie.

Grade: B+ Score:8/10 Recommendation: Go check it out