Film
“Romancing” Redux Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum pay homage to a 1984 classic By Br yan VanC ampe n
I
f you go to movies long enough, sometimes you see trends and fashions; like, suddenly there’s four body-switch movies (“Big,” “Vice Versa,” “17 Again” and “Like Father, Like Son”) within a year, or a bunch of films set on Mars, or whatever. There must be something in the water, because hot on the heels of last month’s treasure hunt adventure “Uncharted” with Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg comes “The Lost City” (Paramount-Fortis Films-3dot ProductionsExhibit A, 2022, 112 min.), starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. “The Lost City” is more satisfying and fun to watch than “Uncharted” for two reasons. One: Bullock and Tatum are big-time stars with big-time chemistry and charisma, and you can’t fake that. You have it or you don’t, and they have it. (I hope Bullock and Tatum are developing more movies to star in together.) Two, Bullock, Tatum and company are clearly paying tribute to one
Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in “The Lost City.” (Photo: Paramount)
of the great exotic adventure rom-coms, Robert Zemeckis’ “Romancing the Stone” (1984). This is not a subtle homage, I could tell within five minutes that “Romancing the Stone” was the model for this movie. Sidebar: Steven Spielberg produced Robert Zemeckis’ first two movies, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (1978) and “Used Cars” (1980). Both were well-made comedies, but they flopped at the box office. Zemeckis planned to make a time travel movie with Spielberg, a little something called “Back to the Future.” None of the studios wanted it, and Zemeckis told Spielberg, “If I make
another movie with you that bombs, I’ll probably never work again.” Word was getting around town: Zemeckis can’t get a job unless Spielberg is the producer. So Bob Z. told his agent that he would direct the first good script he was offered. That script turned out to be Diane Thomas’s “Romancing The Stone.” Zemeckis directed it, it was his first hit, and suddenly, everybody wanted to make “Back to the Future.” Still with us? In “Romancing the Stone,” Kathleen Turner plays a mousy romance writer whose sister gets kidnapped, sending her on a rescue mission to Mexico, where she meets ne’er-do-well adventurer Michael Douglas. Romance and adventures ensue. In “The Lost City,” Bullock plays Loretta, a successful but depressed romance novelist unveiling her latest book. The twist is that Loretta is saddled with Tatum’s character, Alan, a dopey stud muffin male model who has posed for all the covers of Loretta’s novels. (Tatum likes to wear a dumb Fabio wig, and every time he appears in public, the background music inevitably is Europe’s “The Final Countdown.”) Loretta has a background in history and academia, and she receives an invitation from eccentric billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), who wants her to decipher the symbols on a scrap of an ancient map. She declines, Radcliffe kidnaps her, and Alan, who feels badly about his deteriorating relationship with Loretta, takes it upon himself to hire a human tracker named Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt) and travel to the Dominican Republic to rescue Loretta. No one’s trying to reinvent the wheel here. A lot of the B-roll action shots look like they could have been lifted from countless other jungle adventure pictures, but none of that really matters. As I mentioned, Bullock and Tatum really work well together as a Hollywood romantic duo, allowing plenty of room for Radcliffe, Pitt and De’Vine Joy Randolph (“My Name is Dolemite”) as Loretta’s publicist to be funny and steal scenes. Sometimes, a movie like “The Lost City” hits the sweet spot, and that’s what you want. “The Lost City” is showing now at Regal Cinemas at the mall. Recommended: “The Automat” at Cinemapolis.
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APRIL 6–12, 2022
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