Review: The Lost City

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

As far as "Romancing the Stone" knockoffs go, "The Lost City" isn't half bad. An action-comedy featuring bickering male and female leads stranded in an exotic location and running from a cadre of bad guys, the picture is somewhat short on originality, but in terms of execution it's often amusing enough, despite being fairly lightweight.

On the one hand, this is a film in which plot developments, jokes and character arcs can be spotted from a mile away, but the banter between its game leads is often good for a laugh (especially from Channing Tatum's airhead book cover model Alan), and some of the jokes - for example, Alan's suggestion that grouchy, reclusive author Loretta Sage visit "ancient Greece" for a getaway) are good for a chortle.

In the picture, Sage has never fully recovered from the death of her adventurer-type husband, and long ago gave up her more serious studies to write trashy romance novels with exotic locales. Alan has long been the cover model for her novels, which chronicle the adventures of a male (Dash) and female duo who get into Indiana Jones-type adventures, but manage to toss in all manner of sexual innuendos.

Alan has taken to responding to the name "Dash" from adoring female fans, while Loretta doesn't particularly enjoy the book tour element of her career. Patti Harrison plays Loretta's peculiar social media manager, while Da'Vine Joy Randolph gets some laughs as her beleaguered agent. 

Based on the premise of her latest book, which involves a priceless treasure that's believed to exist somewhere in South America, a rich English explorer named Abigail (Daniel Radcliffe) and his cronies kidnap Loretta with the intention of forcing her to locate the treasure's whereabouts. Alan, who Loretta considers to be a joke, believes that this is his moment to prove himself to her, so he enlists the help of his special ops pal/meditation guru, Jack (Brad Pitt, in a small role), for a rescue mission.

Both Tatum and Pitt gamely engage in jokes here that poke fun at the appeal they hold among the opposite sex - Pitt's long, flowing hair is seen flowing in the wind as they run from an explosion, and there are a number of jokes centered around Alan's sex appeal for those who read Loretta's novels, although we learn during the course of the picture that he is sensitive, intuitive and a self-described "feminist."

As I'd mentioned, "The Lost City" doesn't go anywhere you won't expect it to, but it's a standard Hollywood action-comedy that gets by on the appeal of its casting, a handful of good jokes, solid camaraderie between its two leads and a genuinely good-natured approach to the material. In other words, it's nothing you haven't seen before, but perhaps slightly better than the same movie you've seen before.