The Lost City is the kind of movie that shouldn’t work and yet does so incredibly well. And maybe that’s because writers/directors Adam and Aaron Nee were so in love with the idea of bringing this story to life as their own Raiders of the Lost Ark, or maybe it was something else entirely, but there’s just something about it that works so well.
It’s a movie about romance author Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) trying to finish writing her series, and as she’s writing, she grows more and more disheartened by her work. But as someone who was inspired by her own education and findings from studying the lost city with her husband, Sage is then thrown into a world where a billionaire named Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe) kidnaps her to help him find the lost city.
I am upset that, in my interviews, I forgot to pitch another movie when Abigail’s brother shows up and it’s Elijah Wood, but hopefully the Nee brothers see this and know that I’m right. But in getting to talk with the Nee Brothers and star Oscar Nunez, who plays Oscar, a cargo pilot who is in love with Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s character named Beth.
The Nee Brothers did tell me about a bit of the inspiration behind the movie and how it helped form their direction. While I was convinced the two had to have watched a lot of romantic-comedies to prepare for the movie, they both talked more about their connection to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. “What I think that we brought to it was wanting to kind of anchor it in those types of movies that were the great cinematic escapes for us as kids like Raiders of the Lost Ark and movies like that where you take something that, on the page, is more like a classic romantic comedy but then go no let’s make it like it’s an adventure film,” Nee said. “Let’s go full on adventure film. So then you’re taking these fish out of water characters and putting them in a story they don’t necessarily belong in.”
For Nunez, we joked more than anything and our conversation was one where we just had fun. And he said that people kept coming to see him in things because of the “nip action” and not his acting ability.
Bringing romance and adventure together
What makes The Lost City so good is that it doesn’t shy away from either genre. Yes, it’s a romantic comedy and yes, it’s an adventure movie. It can be both those things at once and it helps having leads like Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock leading the charge.
The Nee Brothers gave us a movie that put us into a romance novel that didn’t mock the genre or make the characters feel less than for their connection to it and it was a wonderful reminder of just how GOOD Bullock is in these sorts of roles.
You can see my full interview with The Nee Brothers and Oscar Nunez here:
The Lost City is out on Digital and Paramount+ now!
(image: Paramount Pictures)
