As far as things that happen in movies go, it is rather delightful to see Channing Tatum stand naked on a river bank as Sandra Bullock cracks Sandra Bullock-y jokes while picking leeches off his bare butt.
It is a dire time for the theatrical box office—for big studio comedies aimed at adults, for films not based on comic-book superheroes, and for “why don’t they make movies like these anymore?” movies. I’m not sure if The Lost City will save all, or any, of those things. But Channing Tatum’s ass and Sandra Bullock’s humor are formidable arguments for why we should never let any of them die.
The Lost City premiered Saturday at the SXSW film festival, the first time Austin has hosted the proceedings in person since becoming one of the first major entertainment casualties of the pandemic in March 2020. Bullock and co-star Daniel Radcliffe addressed the crowd and acknowledged the poignant pleasures of being together in a movie theater to just have fun. And fun, nothing too much more and definitely nothing less, is exactly what the film delivers.
If you have been around a television at any point in the last several months then you have seen a commercial or trailer for The Lost City, which has apparently struck a devil’s bargain with every network that exists to guarantee that it plays at least once during every single commercial break. That’s actually a helpful thing in this case. Did you see the trailer? You, in essence, know exactly what the film is. (And not just because the best scenes are pretty much spoiled in it.)
You can either not overthink it and bask in the Bullock and the Tatum of it all—each are at the peak of their type, nearly to the point of parody here—or run away and let be those who just want to see Sandra Bullock do her Sandra Bullock thing while Channing Tatum continues to be our most reliable and self-aware movie star. There are simple joys in life, and sometimes that means eating some popcorn and going along for the ride when movie stars actually allow themselves to be movie stars in a silly film.
Whether The Lost City is a successor to Romancing the Stone—the Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas-led action-comedy-romance in which a romance novelist finds herself in the midst of a wild adventure straight out of her writings—an homage to it, a parody of it, or a meager attempt at essentially redoing it is up for debate. It would be an exhausting debate, one that is inconsequential and perhaps even insufferable. The references (aka the entire plot) are there if you care about such things, and judgments about whether the film is lazy or inspired might depend on your investment in that conversation. But think too hard about any of that and you rob yourself of some easy entertainment.
Bullock plays Loretta Sage, a former academic who, when her Indiana Jones-esque husband died, pivoted into writing romance novels. They’re a smash, much to her dismay and disappointment.
When we meet her in The Lost City, she’s like a Nora Ephron-by-way-of–Nancy Meyers character in a 30 Rock parody of those very films. (Read: My ideal movie heroine. Flawless. No notes.)
She’s ignoring voicemails from her publicist about her book tour, procrastinating finishing her new book by soaking in the tub drinking white wine with ice cubes, and passing time in her beautifully appointed attic writing loft by talking to her dead husband.
At this point, only Sandra Bullock can make these genre cliches seem grounded and clever, and not cringe. And that is exactly why you get Sandra Bullock to make this movie. That is why you get excited that Sandra Bullock did make this movie. That is why you see a movie like this at all. It is Sandra Bullock doing her Sandra Bullock thing in a big Sandra Bullock movie. What a treat.
The cherry on top of that treat is Channing Tatum. He plays Alan, the vapid cover model with Fabio hair who poses as the hero “Dash” for all of Loretta’s novels, the libido-pulsing fantasy for the books’ target audience of “women in their thirties who wish they were in their twenties.”
Loretta loathes Alan. “He’s always glistening all over the place,” she says. “There’s never been an event where his shirt didn’t come flying off.” What she hasn’t bargained for is that the person playing Alan, Mr. Tatum, has perfected the art of himbo comedy unlike any other breathtakingly handsome, body-chiseled-from-stone maestro of ditz humor in his generation. Resistance to the endearing doofiness is futile, especially when there are those abs.
This is a lot of talking about the appeal of Bullock and Tatum as movie stars—oh, they also have great chemistry—and not much about the plot. There are several reasons for that. The plot is rather inconsequential when, really, the whole reason to watch is to see the two leads be goofy and wise-cracking and then vaguely sexy with each other. The plot also manages to be obvious and simple, yet entirely too complicated and convoluted, all at the same time.
A bitter heir to a family fortune with a chip on his shoulder, Abigail Fairfax (played by a dastardly and smug Daniel Radcliffe, who is having a blast) knows Loretta’s academic history and thinks that she can help him find a hidden treasure in the Lost City of D, a real-life ancient place that she had used as a mythical backdrop in her recent novel. So he kidnaps her.
Alan, who always wanted to impress Loretta but always ends up putting his foot in his mouth during their interactions, inadvertently sees this happen. He knows how to impress her now. He’ll save her.
This involves enlisting a professional extractor played by Brad Pitt, the epitome of a perfect A-list cameo in a studio movie and possibly the highlight of the film. It also involves flying to a remote island, traversing the jungle while bickering, bantering, and (obviously) falling in love with Loretta, and about four or five more action set pieces and narrative speed bumps that the movie probably needs.
But in the midst of all that we get Tatum’s butt, several ace jokes about the glittery purple jumpsuit that Bullock is forced to wear throughout the whole adventure, and occasion to talk about how handsome Brad Pitt is. Supporting turns from Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Oscar Nuñez earned audience applause for a few of their most outrageous scenes, which were also among some of the broadest-reaching, lowest-common-denominator comedy bits of the project. Yet you enjoy it all.
It’s all pleasant. Is it high art? No. Does it elevate the genre? Probably not, but then again it’s a genre and kind of film that flat-out doesn’t exist anymore. This is a film that knows what it is and who it’s meant to entertain, and it certainly delivers that.
It’s been almost 40 years since Romancing the Stone. When that much time has passed, the stone doesn’t even expect romance anymore. It’s just happy to exist.
