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​The Lost City, ​Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s remote island romp​,​ joins classics from The African Queen to FitzcarraldoWhen The Lost City unassumingly racked up £160m at the global box office this spring, it proved a few things: the enduring appeal of the adult-targeted, star-driven romantic comedy, a genre that franchise-fixated studios have nonetheless sidelined of late; the near-supernatural ability of Sandra Bullock to conjure chemistry with just about any co-star you care to throw at her, in this case the resurgent Channing Tatum; and that laughs can still be wrung from the age-old premise of sticking two beautiful people in the wilderness and letting them fight their way out of it.The far-flung great outdoors – be it Amazonian jungle or African plain – is among the most eternal antagonists in Hollywood cinema: it gives film-makers spectacle and actors obstacles, lending a sense of scale and heft to even the slightest stories. The romantic adventure film, meanwhile, has long been a Hollywood standby based on pretty outdated notions of gender crossover interest: women will come for the romance, studio execs reasoned, and men will tolerate that for the exotic action and derring-do. Whether or not that’s the case, it still works: The Lost City – just out on multiple VOD platforms – is a breezy, bouncy romp. Set predominantly on a remote Atlantic island, attractively played by the Dominican Republic, it’s complicated by all manner of conflicting treasure-hunt schemes that promptly leave your memory the second the credits roll. What sticks is the game, genuinely funny sparring between Bullock’s reserved romance novelist and Tatum’s likably inept himbo. Continue reading...