Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum battle it out in the adventure comedy with star power and a huge density of gags THE LOST CITY – IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CITY first through the jungle and then straight into the hearts of the audience. We reveal more about one of the funniest films of the year in our review.
OT: The Lost City (USA 2022)
The plot
Brilliant but reclusive author Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) has spent her career writing about exotic locations in her popular romance and adventure novels – the hero of her stories, the handsome cover model Alan (Channing Tatum), who is also in real life has dedicated its existence to embodying the main character “Dash”. While on tour to promote her new book with Alan, Loretta is kidnapped by eccentric billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), who hopes she can lead him to the treasure of the ancient lost city from her latest novel. Wanting to prove that he can be a hero in real life and not just in the pages of her books, Alan sets out to save her. The unlikely pair soon find themselves in the middle of a truly unreal adventure in the depths of the jungle, where the boundaries between fiction and reality seem to become increasingly blurred. Will the two manage to become a team to survive the challenges of the wilderness and find the ancient treasure before it is lost forever?
criticism
Within three weeks, the adventure comedy “The Lost City” managed to recoup its production costs of an estimated $68 to 74 million in the United States. The current revenue is just under 90 million, which doesn’t sound like much at first, but the trend is clearly upwards. After all, the film is still very popular there. Above all, this (interim) result is not to be despised because “The Lost City” has to make do without a well-known template, an existing franchise or a popular director’s name, but solely due to the successful advertising campaign (the trailers alone are hilarious!) as well as the star power of Sandra Bullock (“Ocean’s 8″)Channing Tatum (“Magic Mike XXL”)Daniel Radcliffe (“The Incredibles 2”) and Brad Pitt (“Once upon a Time in Hollywood”) can set. The latter makes your ears flap just as you read it, considering that “The Lost City” is, on the one hand, “just” a fun adventure comedy (the fact that Nolan, Scorsese and Co. regularly get much larger casts together depends on it). certainly also due to the expected prestige of the production), and on the other hand, no well-known names can be heard behind the scenes. The brothers Aaron and Adam Nee, who was also responsible for the script (“Band of Robbers”) didn’t make a big appearance until this film. And with the screenwriter Oren Uziel (“22 Jump Street”) and Dana Fox (“Cruella”) The casual audience will have to go online to find out that the two of them have already been responsible for many a higher-budgeted project. What the studio presented to the actors before production began must have been enough to convince the cast.
The eccentric billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe) wants to seize a secret treasure with Loretta’s (Sandra Bullock) help.
And that’s exactly what you notice! The passionate ensemble is the linchpin of the film, although “Herzstück” is even better considering the emotional component. Of course, the amorous part takes place primarily with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in the center, but no matter who the two of them act with outside of it, the interaction is never characterized by purely aiming for the next punchline, but rather is based primarily on it Remarkable levels of humor are high because the perception of the other person is always huge. Nobody stands out here; instead, “The Lost City” is an ensemble performance that is also characterized by a lot of improvisation. This also allows you to quickly narrow down the genre. Contrary to what the poster suggests, “The Lost City” is less of an adventure film and more of a romantic comedy with comedy in first place and romance in second place. Anyone who knows nothing about the film will be presented with quite a surprise relatively early in the film, when Loretta and Alan find themselves in a threatening situation before all the cliché elements of such an adventure scene gradually disappear into thin air around them: the grim-looking villains as well as hundreds of snakes that the two of them keep in check and with which author Loretta, not for nothing, questions how something like this is actually supposed to work in reality…
“Contrary to what the poster suggests, ‘The Lost City’ is less of an adventure film and more of a romantic comedy with comedy first and romance second.”
“The Lost City” is now and then a targeted adventure film parody, but it also works without its level of irony – in the moments in which the treasure hunt adventure skilfully highlights these genre elements, one imagines oneself in more recent film contributions of the “Uncharted” brand “. Nevertheless, the greatest inspiration for the film remains Robert Zemeckis’ “In Search of the Green Diamond” from 1986. In short: what “The Lost City” consists of is only revolutionary to a limited extent; From the main characters, who initially can’t stand each other and pull each other together against their will, to the megalomaniacal villain (Daniel Radcliffe enriches his role from “The Incredibles 2” with even more evil vibes) to the clues that the characters have to follow, to decipher a secret – here the eponymous one about the “lost city” – is a genre standard that could quickly feel worn out. If it weren’t for everything that makes “The Lost City” such a blast: the cast, the high pace, the density of gags and also the occasional meta sprinkles, which show a tremendous love for adventure cinema, rather than just the familiar elements to pull roughly through the cocoa. Above all, “The Lost City” is – also – a smart deconstruction of the media business, which appears glamorous on the outside, while the authenticity of the whole thing usually never comes through.
Survival expert Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt) has a solution for almost everything… including rescuing Loretta.
This includes, for example, the fact that the cover model Alan, embodied by Channing Tatum with a wonderful amount of self-irony, outwardly only fulfills the surface appeal for an audience hungry for a sexy hero. In reality, he is not only quite smart, but also seriously emotionally involved in his role and doesn’t just see it as an attractive job. Sandra Bullock’s Loretta, on the other hand, has long since rejected the shallowness of her books; She originally had adventurer ambitions herself, which faded more and more into the background from novel to novel, until her series degenerated primarily into love and erotic kitsch, which she now only writes reluctantly. This constellation results in the very opposites that make the interaction between the two characters so amusing – and gradually reveal the sometimes surprising core of the characters. On the other hand, the adventurer Jack Trainer, played by Brad Pitt, is less particularly clever and more useful (in the best sense!) written as a comic relief and a highlight of the film. We don’t want to reveal too much about his short but very memorable appearance. Just this much: He was as cool as he was here in the “Ocean’s” films and as funny… never before. Suddenly the wishes for a Tatum Pitt-centered spin-off to “The Lost City” become very, very present…
“The constellation of the main characters, written on the basis of opposites, results in the very opposites that make the interaction between the two characters so amusing – and gradually reveal the sometimes surprising core of the characters.”
The fact that, in addition to the humor, the moderate use of action is right is mainly due to the down-to-earth production, which is nowhere near as aloof as action cinema. Although the strong lighting sometimes obscures it and gives the film a strangely fake studio look here and there, “The Lost City” was largely shot on real location, with the team visiting various locations in the Dominican Republic. Whenever cameraman Jonathan Sela (“Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw”) When this strength is used, you can see the value of the film. Together with an amusing sideshow about Loretta’s ambitious publisher Beth Hatten (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and her shady acquaintance Oscar (Oscar Nuñez), the result is an entertaining, amusing, sometimes action-packed adventure whose outcome you wholeheartedly wish everyone involved only the best .
Conclusion: “The Lost City – In Search of the Lost City” is less of an adventure film and more of a comedy with a romcom touch that becomes more and more present towards the end, which does everything right on this level. An excellent, passionate cast and the high density of gags make this entertaining, explosive foray through the jungle one of the funniest films of the year.
“The Lost City – In Search of the Lost City” can be seen in USA cinemas from April 21, 2022.
