Lost in Thought

Whenever a beloved movie from decades past gets a remake, a segment of the internet replies predictably to decry the foolish decision that's destroying childhoods. I try not to get swept up in such notions (though I'd be challenged if a Back to the Future remake was ever announced). Still, I feel like the best movie remake targets might be "middling" movies -- films that made back their money the first time around, but were perhaps flawed, or somehow forgettable.

The Lost City isn't exactly a remake. The light-hearted movie about a romance-adventure novelist who finds herself swept up in an actual romance-adventure is an original script. But for anyone who has ever seen (or even heard of) Romancing the Stone, it's hard not to think that's where the inspiration came from. Now it has been years and years since I've seen Romancing the Stone, so my memory of it isn't all that clear. And we know that plenty of movies from the 1980s age quite poorly if you watch them now. Still, my impression is that this new incarnation of the movie is indeed the lesser version that the internet trolls might rail against.

The Lost City is fine enough, if you come to it with quite modest expectations. You probably aren't going to watch it at all if you don't find its stars charming to begin with -- and sure enough, they're all charming here. Sandra Bullock has done comedy and drama in her career, and comedy-drama like this. She's a clearly A-list actor, and it would probably still be fair to say she's underappreciated. Channing Tatum has historically been at his best when he's not taking himself too seriously, and the dopey cover model he plays here can't be taken seriously by anyone, least of all himself. Daniel Radcliffe is always happy to show up in a movie, chew the scenery, and add ever more distance to his Harry Potter origins; he does so again here as an over-the-top villain. And Brad Pitt seems to be having the most fun of all, in the smallest but funniest of these four main roles. Every one of the four is better than the material. They're here for fun: to have fun, poke fun, whatever.

While the movie puts a smile on your face, it does so intermittently. And it never really comes close to actually making you laugh. It also feels like the creative team knew this, because they clearly kept tweaking the movie in an attempt to improve it, well after it was shot. An enormous, obvious percentage of the dialogue in the movie is "looped" in, spoken during wide shots or against the back of the speaker's head, because it was clearly recorded months later in a studio and dropped into the movie. This includes everything from exposition (probably, wisely, to bring the movie in under two hours) to a large number of the jokes (where a game of "best idea wins" was seemingly started way too late in the movie-making process).

If you don't like Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, or Brad Pitt, then there's absolutely nothing here for you. But come on -- who doesn't like Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, OR Brad Pitt?! Still, I predict this movie is destined to be even more forgotten than the 80s film that likely inspired it. I give The Lost City a C.