The Lost City (2022) * * *

Directed by:  Aaron Nee and Adam Nee

Starring:  Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Brad Pitt, Daniel Radcliffe, Oscar Nunez, Da'vine Joy Randolph

Romantic screwball comedy meets Indiana Jones in The Lost City, not to be confused with the recent The Lost City of Z, although that movie and Loretta Sage's newest book share a nearly identical title.   The idea of a romance writer being swept away on an adventure is nothing new.   Romancing the Stone (1984) had a similar plot, but both Stone and The Lost City hinges on the chemistry of its stars to pull off the movie.   Like Romancing the Stone, The Lost City gives us two likable, wounded people trying to extricate themselves from a situation in which they are way over their pretty heads.

Shortly after Sage's first stop on her press tour, which is dominated by the appearance of her frequent cover model Alan (Tatum) in a Q & A session, Loretta is kidnapped by a British zillionaire (Radcliffe), who thinks Loretta can help him find lost treasure near a recently discovered lost city.   Loretta, still hurting from the loss of her husband five years ago, isn't much in favor of helping her kidnapper.   Alan, who harbors a crush on Loretta, decides to enlist a special ops acquaintance named Jack Trainer (Pitt) to rescue her.  

Jack is an expert at rescuing and taking on five henchmen in a fist and gun fight, but soon he's out of the picture and the guileless Alan and equally out-of-her-depth Loretta have to find their way out of the jungle on a remote Atlantic island.  While Alan is the cover model on all of Loretta's soft-core romance novels, Jack is probably closer to the guy she's envisioning when writing them.

Not much in The Lost City will surprise anyone, although there is one in a post-credits sequence, but Bullock and Tatum rely not only on charm but having personalities and energetically attacking the material.   This is Tatum's second movie in a row, after Dog, in which he plays a hurting guy who just wants to show the world he's more than just a pretty face.   Tatum and Bullock can handle light comedy with ease, but getting past their inner pain to find happiness adds an extra dimension.