The Lost City review - terrific odd-couple comedy

Sandra Bullock is on terrific form in this rollicking romcom in which she plays Loretta Sage, a historian who writes bestselling romance novels in which the heroine has adventures in exotic places with her lover, Dash.

Now, still grieving the loss of her archeologist husband five years before, Loretta has been sent on a book-signing tour by her manager, Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, giving it both barrels).

Bad enough for Loretta that she has to leave her apartment where she could happily stay for ever, but she has to go on the road with Alan (Channing Tatum), the chisel-jawed, hunky model who appears as Dash on the covers of her books and, Beth says, brings in the younger demographic. “He’s always glistening all over the place,” Loretta complains snarkily.

But real jeopardy strikes when a media billionaire's petulant son, Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe) kidnaps Loretta and takes her to a jungle island in the middle of the ocean where he believes there is ancient treasure that she – and her knowledge of runes – will help him find.

Alan, who fantasises about being the hero Dash, goes to rescue Loretta after asking an actual tough guy, ex-navy SEAL Jack (Brad Pitt), for help; Alan simply can't match this alpha male but he's going to try. Odd couple Loretta and Alan bicker, then bond as they try to outrun and outsmart the baddies, with tongues in cheek and a wink at the audience. Bullock is an old hand at this knowing comedy, while Tatum has perfected his dim-but-gorgeous act.

Pitt is in on the joke too, happy to make fun of a career aided by his good looks. “Why are you so handsome?” Loretta asks him, bedazzled. “My dad was a weatherman,” he responds, deadpan.

Writers Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, Oren Uziel and Dana Fox work in nods to films such as Romancing the Stone, Raiders of the Lost Ark and even The African Queen (although Katharine Hepburn never gazed adoringly at Humphrey Bogart's bare bottom as she removed leeches from it) but it would be a mistake for a reviewer to look for any deeper meanings in the movie, and nor should viewers because it's meant to be good old-fashioned fun. The Nee brothers, who also direct, keep things moving apace and the laugh count high; there's a lot of comedy mileage in Bullock spending most of the movie in a spangly purple jumpsuit.

Apart from an end credit scene that barely raises a smile, let alone a laugh, The Lost City is a hoot.

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