Movie Review: The Lost City

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A highly entertaining action-comedy. 

What makes this movie work is that it never takes itself seriously. There are times when we want to see something that will challenge us and there are also times when we want to see something that is simply silly fun. This film is just that and it delivers quite well. The humor comes fast and furious in this movie and most of it works. Having just seen this in a movie theater, I can tell you this film is an audience pleaser but the amount of laughter I heard throughout. What is also refreshing is the source of much of this humor. It is easy for a film like this to become too meta for its own good. This can be done to the point where it takes you out of the movie. Luckily that is not the case here. While this movie clearly makes fun of adventure films, the majority of the humor comes not from observations about these types of movies, but by putting these characters that seemingly wouldn't belong in an adventure movie in one. Because of this most of the humor comes from a completely natural and unforced place, while still being completely silly. This also makes it so that during the times the humor misses (which is less often than when it works), it doesn't hurt the movie too much. Speaking of the characters I really enjoyed these characters. One of the most important things about adventure movies (even one that is first and foremost a comedy), is you want to go on an adventure with characters you enjoy spending time with. While these characters fall into many of the clichés for this type of comedy, they do so in a way that, they still are quite likable and easy to root for. Much of this is due to the pure chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. These two work off each other perfectly and it is simply a joy to watch them share the screen.

It is no secret that this movie is far from original. We have all seen this story before and in this regard, this brings nothing new to the table. While this is not that big of a problem for a film this fun, it does make it so we always know what is going to happen next. 

Simply a really fun time at the movies.