Director: Aaron Nee & Adam Nee

Story By: Oren Uriel, Dana Fox, Adam Nee, Aaron Nee and Seth Gordon (story by). 

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, and Brad Pitt. 

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… … Yeah, I mean it was cute, but this definitely should’ve been treated like Marry Me and released on a streaming platform simultaneously.   

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Theme & Story: A-

Pacing: A

Character: A-

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Entertainment Factors

General Public: Don’t Watch

Film Enthusiasts: Don’t Watch

Experience Seekers (via Visuals & Score): Don’t Watch

Comedy / Action Adventure Fans: Wait for Streaming

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TAKEAWAYS:

1. A best selling author loses her creative spark and love for writing after the death of her husband, but is suddenly forced into an adventure that serves to reignite her ability to love in more ways than one. 

Thematically, the story asks, “what does it/can it look like to allow yourself/give yourself permission to fall in love again?” 

Act One did a pretty decent job of catching me up to the issues concerning the main character, Loretta via a mix of character dialogue and actions—all related to her writing slump caused by her husband’s death. I never found myself confused as to why she seemed uninterested in everything connected to the book. 

Act Two was fun for me, and I felt it did a better job at focusing on the theme around Loretta learning to fall in love with her writing/why she writes more than anything. The “love of another human” component felt a little awkward to me, and honestly came off a little forced and insensitive of this woman’s emotional boundaries. 

Act Three seemed to serve as Loretta’s moment of realization, acceptance, and validation in response to both her writing and husband’s death—so in terms of thematic follow through, it was a good wrap up. 

I do feel, though cute and not as awkward as Act Two, that it definitely attempted to lay on that “human love” component rather thick in order to support and make sense of Act Two. 🥴🤷🏾‍♂️👍🏾

2. Sandra Bullock is absolutely beautiful! 😩🙌🏾 

3. The Lost City has a run time of over 140 minutes, and it was engaging through and through. I personally didn’t feel the time at all. 👍🏾

4. Brad Pitt came and did what he was supposed to. #HeUnderstoodTheAssignment. 👍🏾

5. Héctor Anibal is a beautiful man! 😍

6. Da’Vine Joy Randolph was “just okay.” Something about her character felt edible but undercooked. 🥴🤷🏾‍♂️

7. Daniel Radcliffe! 😩😍

8. First off, Sandra Bullock was a joy to watch as our lead character. She has such an effortless comedic charm, and I eventually found myself loving the pairing with Tatum (though at first, I wasn’t as sold on Tatum). Additionally, Daniel Radcliffe was a fun villain.

I loved how Tatum and Bullock’s interactions helped carry out the theme, and how Radcliffe’s character was used as the odd impetus to the theme’s development. 

The character flaws for me happened to be the type casting of Beth as the “big, Black comedic relief”, and a little bit of Sandra Bullock’s character delivery—at times (like with the explosion scene), Bullock seemed too comfortable, familiar, and unfazed by all that was happening around her. At one point, I had a thought that her character would’ve been more believable as maybe an uppity, entitled high profile actress than an author. Or even if she was this popular, high profile cover model and Tatum the author. 🥴🤷🏾‍♂️

9. To piggyback off point #8, though Tatum’s charm eventually grew on me, it was as if I could tell that he was trying to figure his character out in the first half of the film—I wasn’t 100% sold on him at first. 🥴

10. There were 2 director decisions that stood out to me. The first was how Thomas Forbes-Johnson’s character was introduced—Though he was in the audience, there seemed to be this spotlight on him whenever the camera panned the audience. The second was the moment Sandra Bullock heard the motorcycles in the fog, and she turns to face the camera. 🧐👍🏾

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Overall #TheLostCity gives Uncharted – meets Artemis Fowl – meets Eat, Pray, Love.

The film is cute and adventurous, but it’s a pretty safe film that I don’t see as something worthy of spending a theater coin on in my opinion, nor rushing to see.