The Lost City (2022)

The Lost City (2022) Aaron and Adam Nee are the directors of this film. These brothers also sometimes work separately. Together they also made Band of Robbers, which I haven’t seen. This secret of the lost city is an American action comedy.

Yes, I know a lot of people hated this film! For my part, I had a good time for a number of reasons. Firstly, I’ve never seen Romancing the Stone (yeah, the famous duet in pursuit of the green diamond) of 1984, which I can’t think of a better film to compare it to. Secondly, I was in exactly the right mood to see this kind of unsophisticated comedy. Thirdly, seeing Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe and Brad Pitt in the cast made me very happy.

I’m not a huge Bullock fan, although I do like the two films she was in with Keanu Reeves and a few others such as Demolition Man (1993), The Blind Side (2009), The Net (1995) and Gravity (2013). I don’t really like Practical Magic (1998) or Premonition (2007), but I love A Time to Kill (1996). I loved Murder by Numbers (2002) when I saw it in the cinema, but much less when I saw it again years later. I’ve never seen Bullet Train (2022), the other film that reunites Brad and Sandra.

And speaking of Pitt, he’s once again in a very short role, just like in Snatch (2000), True Romance (1993), Thelma & Louise (1991) and even in Burn After Reading (2008) he doesn’t have such a big part! Once again, it’s fair to say that he’s in a supporting role. He’s regularly in the best moments of certain films. I’m always a bit disappointed to see so little of him, when I always want to see more! Let’s not forget that he produced True Story (2015) which is probably the best film with James Franco and one of Felicity Jones‘ best.

As for Radcliffe, I’m not a Harry Potter fan and I really hated Guns Akimbo (2019). I like Now You See Me 2 (2016). The Woman in Black (2011) doesn’t look terrible, nor very original unlike Swiss Army Man (2016), which is a kind of indescribable UFO to be seen once, at least. And Jungle (2017) is excellent!

As for Channing Tatum, I like him more and more. He’s proved that he’s more than just good looks and a pretty face. It was a great pleasure to see him in Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), but sad to learn at the same time that his superhero film Gambit was not produced and therefore cancelled! Tatum is excellent in Blink Twice (2024) too. We know he’s an excellent dancer, as are actors Chris Pratt and Sam Rockwell.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph gave me a good laugh here. She is an American actress, musical performer and singer. She first came to prominence for her Tony Award-nominated performance in the Broadway production of Ghost. For her role in the film The Holdovers, she won both the Golden Globe Award and the Oscar in 2024 for Best Supporting Actress. Critics are quick to point out that Sandra Bullock has been completely deformed by surgery and that she overplays her role, while ticking a number of demagogic boxes among the self-righteous, Tatum struggles to make us smile, that Radcliffe is a caricature of a villain, that the overweight black boss, who gives men a hard time, hits rock bottom…

In short! There will always be those who speak badly. The beginning of the film is long, the story has trouble getting off the ground and I suppose that everything had been revealed in the trailer. But, fortunately, about 15 minutes arrive that give us great hope, 15 minutes served up in a luxury cameo by Brad Pitt in self-deprecating mode that works wonderfully. This adventurer provides the best part of the film, with the post-generic scene giving us 15 to 20 minutes of high-flying out of a running time of 1 hour 50 minutes. So it’s not a laugh-out-loud film, nor is it the funniest film of 2022. It was just false advertising. Just a nice little comedy that Americans love to make and that passes the time.