The Lost City (12A)

Reclusive romance novelist Loretta Sage puts the finishing touches to her latest page turner, The Lost City Of D, featuring her thrill-seeking alter ego Dr Angela Lovemore and lusciously golden-locked paramour Dash McMahon. During a book tour with model Alan Caprison, who portrays Dash on the book covers, sharp-suited treasure seeker Abigail Fairfax kidnaps Loretta. He believes the key to a real-life ancient civilisation and its greatest treasure is hidden in the pages of Loretta's latest bonkbuster.

LondonNet Film Review

The Lost City (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum grumble in the jungle in a rip-roaring action-adventure comedy directed by Adam and Aaron Nee, which lovingly harks back four decades to the good-humoured escapism of Romancing The Stone and Jewel Of The Nile. Sparkling chemistry between the leads, who are unafraid to make fools of themselves for our enjoyment, enlivens a gloriously silly caper that milks laughs from Bullock’s impeccable pratfalls, Tatum’s exposed buttocks and the slow-motion hairography of Brad Pitt’s extended cameo…

A loopy script credited to the directors as well as Oren Uziel and Dana Fox strikes a crowd-pleasing balance between breathless action set pieces, including a ham-fisted fight on a moving armoured vehicle, and full-blown screwball comedy that excavates unexpectedly macabre ground. Some of the nuttier diversions, like a goofy cargo plane pilot (Oscar Nunez) whose best friend is a goat, don’t quite land and a gleefully unhinged Daniel Radcliffe with bulging neck veins vanishes for disappointingly long stretches when his maniacal menace could be sustained. However, Bullock and Tatum sell every deranged digression with aplomb, cajoling us to have as much fun in our seats as they are having together on-screen in steamy surroundings.

Five years after the death of her archaeologist husband, reclusive romance novelist Loretta Sage (Bullock) puts the finishing touches to her latest page turner, The Lost City Of D, featuring her thrill-seeking alter ego Dr Angela Lovemore and lusciously golden-locked paramour Dash McMahon. Literary publicist Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) drags Loretta on a book tour with newly appointed social media manager Allison (Patti Harrison) in tow, who blithely embellishes every post with #shawnmendes to attract a younger demographic. Beth neglects to mention that model Alan Caprison (Tatum), who portrays Dash on the book covers, will be joining them for the promotional whirlwind.

Following a disastrous Q&A session dressed in a skin-tight sequined pink jumpsuit, Loretta is kidnapped by two goons (Hector Anibal, Thomas Forbes-Johnson). Their sharp-suited master, Abigail Fairfax (Radcliffe), believes the key to a real-life ancient civilisation and its greatest treasure – a priceless ruby headdress – is hidden “amidst the pages of coital reverie” of Loretta’s latest bonkbuster. While Loretta spars with her captors, Alan recruits human tracker Jack Trainer (Pitt) to help him rescue the author, for whom he clearly holds a torch… that will come in handy when the expedition ventures into labyrinthine caverns.

The Lost City is a rib-tickling blast that gambols free of logic and realism, with a strong, resourceful female protagonist at its core (“Wait, I’m the damsel in distress?!” realises Alan during the treasure hunt). Bullock and Tatum are a winning double-act, striking gold with every verbal sideswipe and intentional tumble. They are the glittering treasures of the Nee brothers’ hare-brained horseplay.

– Jo Planter