Talk about making easy money.
This relatively lazy and formulaic action-comedy vehicle sees Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum go through the motions with a Romancing the Stone-esque plotline that has been done-to-death dozens of times before.
If it wasn’t for a stand-out cameo from Brad Pitt as kick-ass ex-Navy SEAL and human tracker Jack Trainer – this would have been nothing more than ‘meh’ from start to finish.
Bullock – still grieving the death of her archaeologist husband from years before – is successfully cynical romance novelist Loretta Saga, going through a mid-life crisis.
But when Daniel Radcliffe’s (pretty much playing the same role as he did in Now You See Me 2) eccentric billionaire Abigail Fairfax sees some mysteriously ancient hieroglyphics in her latest book – he kidnaps her, convinced she knows the whereabouts of a priceless treasure known as the ‘Crown of Fire’.
But as she’s swept away on a jungle adventure to a remote Atlantic island by Fairfax and his cronies, her dim-witted but hunky book cover model Alan (Channing Tatum) – who plays the heroic main character Dash McMahon in her novel series and secretly has a crush on her – locates her via GPS and haplessly goes to rescue her. With her PR guru Beth (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) also trying to locate her via any way possible too, in a tepid side story.
What ensues is the usual Bullock Miss Congeniality and The Heat-type comedy that was pretty much all seen in the trailer. There’s a couple of decent comedy set-pieces and it’s all generally harmless inoffensive popcorn-crunching fare throughout.
But Bullock and Tatum simply deserve a lot better than these jungle hi-jinks and ‘falling in love’ clichés – and seem to get ‘lost’ in the predictable ho-hum functionality of it all.
ESP Rating: 2.5/5
Gavin Miller
Showcase Cinema De Lux Peterborough, Out Now
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison & Brad Pitt
Running Time: 1 Hr 52 Mins
Director: Adam Nee & Aaron Nee
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