The Lost City is a 2022 American action-adventure film directed by The Nee Brothers and starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Brad Pitt. 

Loretta Sage is a moody middle-aged author who writes romance-adventure novels centered around a fictional hero named Dash McMahon, who is played by cover model Alan Caprison. Her publisher, Beth, insists that she must go on a book tour with Alan as an effort to soften Loretta of her secludedness. 

After a messy start, mostly because of the popularity of Alan’s Dash image, Loretta is met by the outlandish billionaire Abigail Fairfax. Fairfax realizes that Loretta has based her books on actual historic research she did with her dead archaeologist husband. Fairfax has found a lost city on a remote island and is convinced that this is the location of ‘The Crown of Fire,’ a priceless treasure. When Loretta refuses to help decode an ancient map to the treasure, Fairfax who is scared the location will be destroyed by an an active valcano, kidnaps Loretta and takes her to the island. Alan, who is secretly crushing on Loretta, witnesses her kidnapping. He gets Jack Trainer, an ex-Navy SEAL turned CIA operative, to meet him at the island and map out a rescue mission. Beth finds out about Loretta’s abduction and also goes to the island to try to save her. 

This is not just an action-adventure film, it is also a screwball romantic-comedy film. It doesn’t shine like so many classic treasure hunting or comedy movies, but the cast makes it very entertaining. Not once is this film boring. Lots of the humor is cheesy and awkward, but that just makes this movie more enjoyable. You find yourself laughing out loud at many times throughout the production. 

You have an all-star cast, but this is far from their best work, which is probably one of the points of the movie and that does make it more humorous. It does prove that they are versatile actors and can do both serious and comedic roles. The acting is great. The storyline is beyond silly, but that’s the main point of the film. The soundtrack is perfect, except for Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night,” which is about questioning how strong a relationship is, but some people don’t care about song meanings. The scenery of the Domenican Republic is absoutely breathtaking. 

Some scenes can be hard to hard to watch for those with claustrophobia and there is a bit of violence and foul language, but nothing over the top. The plot of of this film is a lot like Romancing the Stone, but worse, in fact, it’s more like a parody of the movie. It won’t be winning any awards Lost City, but it is wildly entertaining. It’s not a movie that I was dying to see, but it is worth a watch for the cast, humor and scenery. 

Overall, a very funny movie and I like the story with a story type plot. The film could’ve been less cheesy and awkward and less time could’ve been spent on trying to decipher the map’s code. In general, this is a very enjoyable film. It’s not awful, but far from being fantastic. It’s a good movie to see on a date or with friends. Would I watch it again? Probably not, unless it came on TV and there was nothing else on. 13+ 3.5/5