When a novelist finds herself caught up in a story she previously wrote, that’s speculative fiction, even when it’s entirely wrapped up in romance-adventure trappings. And the trappings of The Lost City look to be very nice indeed. The first trailer is a delight, and the film offers something that more movies should give us: A deeply self-aware Brad Pitt tossing his flowing locks—in slow motion!—as he comes to someone’s rescue.
The movie’s summary is appropriately dramatic:
Brilliant, but reclusive author Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) has spent her career writing about exotic places in her popular romance-adventure novels featuring handsome cover model Alan (Channing Tatum), who has dedicated his life to embodying the hero character, “Dash.” While on tour promoting her new book with Alan, Loretta is kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) who hopes that she can lead him to the ancient lost city’s treasure from her latest story. Wanting to prove that he can be a hero in real life and not just on the pages of her books, Alan sets off to rescue her. Thrust into an epic jungle adventure, the unlikely pair will need to work together to survive the elements and find the ancient treasure before it’s lost forever.
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What simple language cannot convey, the trailer provides: the glorious depths of Bullock’s irritation with Tatum’s cover model; the way Radcliffe’s buttery-smooth politeness clearly masks a lot of eccentricities; and the fact that even the smaller roles here are cast perfectly. Speaking of Radcliffe, “He’s so crazy handsome and devious,” Bullock told Entertainment Weekly. “I don’t know how to explain him. But you wouldn’t think that he plays sinister so beautifully and calmly and in such an attractive way. He’s going to really surprise people.”
The Lost City is directed by brothers Aaron and Adam Nee, who also directed 2015’s Band of Robbers, in which Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are a cop and an ex-con who team up to rob a pawn shop. The film has a story by Seth Gordon, who made the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, and screenplay by the Nee brothers, Dana Fox (co-writer of Cruella), and Oren Uziel (The Cloverfield Paradox).
I’m a little sad this movie isn’t still titled The Lost City of D, but it’s okay. I can work through that disappointment and move on to envying Bullock’s character’s bathtub. The Lost City is in theaters March 25, 2022.
