The Lost City (2022)

The Lost City (2022)

 

5/10

Starring

Sandra Bullock
Channing Tatum
Daniel Radcliffe

Directed by Adam and Aaron Nee

The Lost City is one silly version of 1984’s Romancing the Stone (Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner), mixed with a little drop of Indiana Jones vibes. The movie doesn't cut it when it comes to Romancing the Stone, even though it tried hard to be worth my time.

I think I am fed up with romantic comedies where the guy happens to be a hunk who must save the girl from her feminist view of life—being independent and alone. Why do these stories always have to end with the sexy-looking hunk getting the girl in the end? It's not that this movie couldn't have gone another way; that was the basic setup of this movie.

The guy who didn’t have feelings for the girl in the first place but was so dumb that he just wanted to be her friend, ends up with the woman who wanted nothing to do with him. Wow, let me see... where have we seen that story setup before? Answer: like every other romantic movie of such settings.

Then we have this couple going on an expedition to find the lost treasure that happens to be lost and no one knows where to find it. From there, they fall in love.

Let’s flesh out this movie and add some complications to it. The lady in question is Loretta (Sandra Bullock), a successful widow and depressed best-selling romance novelist, who is going through writer's block as she tries to complete one more novel about her hero character, Dash, and his romantic adventures. The cover model for her book is Alan (Channing Tatum), who lives an unrealistic existence. I’ve never heard of cover models being so involved in the writing of a book. His existence, in fact, has him featuring in the writer’s book tour and even having a speaking relationship with the writer. From what I know about book publishing, that is not true.

Her books feature much archaeological research, which she did with her husband. The rich, eccentric bad guy, Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), has been looking for a treasure called the Crown of Fire and buys an island, believing it to be where the treasure is located. He sees Loretta’s book and notices the archaeological mentions. He kidnaps her because, of the seven billion people on this planet, this author is the only person he could find who could translate the artifact (document).

In the end, the movie did not meet my expectations. Even though the romance was there, I couldn’t see why it mattered at all for it to be there.