April Movie Watch: The Lost City, Windfall, The Adam Project

Another weekend approaches and you want to watch a movie? Well I've got a romcom, a thriller, and/or sci-fi action to whet your appetite. Settle in. 

The Lost City: Sandra Bullock playing a romance novelist and Channing Tatum as her Fabio-esque cover model in a romcom adventure on a tropical island where they're being chased by a dastardly villain played by Daniel Radcliffe. I mean, come on. Do I need to sell you on this any further? 

This movie is a silly and effervescent delight that delivers exactly what you expect. Bullock and Tatum will charm the pants off you (metaphorically, and perhaps even literally if you're watching at home) and it is wonderful to watch their relationship blossom as they get to know each other better and are put through extreme duress. No need to get into too much plot here, but suffice to say, they spend a lot of time in a jungle trying to make their way to safety and this affords the two of them many opportunities to demonstrate their excellent physical comedy skills. They are funny, they are sweet, and they are gorgeous, so it's a match made in heaven.

There's also a great Brad Pitt cameo that will make you guffaw. And overall, everyone in this film knows exactly what they're doing here and having fun. As a fervent romance reader, I loved the commentary on the romance genre and taking down the stereotypes about romance novelists and their characters, or what their readers are looking for in this genre. Much like this movie is leaning into all the romcom stereotypes and telling us, hey it's OK to take a break from serious cinema and enjoy this fizzy little film.

Windfall: Directed by Charlie McDowell from a script written by Justin Lader and Andrew Kevin Walker, and starring the holy trinity of Jason Segel, Jesse Plemons, and Lily Collins, this is a taut Hitchcockian thriller that is a little bit scary, a little bit funny, and a whole lot entertaining. 

None of the characters are named in this film, they are just labelled in the credits as CEO (Plemons), Wife (Collins), and Nobody (Segel). There's a fourth character, but given the brisk 92-minute running time, I am loath to give away any details so you'll just have to find out who that is for yourself. The plot is simple - CEO and wife arrive at their vacation home, only to discover Nobody has broken into it. Nobody takes them hostage, and our little drama unfolds. It feels like a play, where you only have three people stuck in one house, trying to figure each other out. The dialogue provides all the characterization you need and you will find your sympathies shifting as the scene demands.

This is the perfect movie if you want to stay in, turn on Netflix, and enjoy a quick adrenalin rush. The actors are doing great work and the writing and direction are crisp. There are no wasted moments here, and there are clues throughout the film that lead to its startling conclusion. Everything made sense once I got to that finale, and I appreciated how I had been carefully led along this path to the ultimate resolution. 

The Adam Project: Unlike Windfall, I cannot say The Adam Project is a brisk and economical piece of entertainment. The best I can say for it is that the casting director did a phenomenal job of finding a young kid, Walker Scobell, who could do an amazing Ryan Reynolds impression.

The plot is...simple? Adam Reed (Reynolds) is a time-travelling pilot from the dystopian hell of 2050 who takes a time jet and crash lands back in 2022 where he meets his 12-year old self (Scobell). Much banter ensues between the two of them, all very peak Reynolds, and then they team up to help defeat the evil woman who is destroying the world in 2050 (played by the very game Catherine Keener). But there's also a lot of family drama playing out involving their mother, played by the wonderful Jennifer Garner, who is dealing with the recent death of their father (played by Mark Ruffalo - so this is a 13 Going on 30 reunion to boot!), and the older Adam counselling his younger bereaved self with the benefit of hindsight. 

There's a lot going on in this movie, as is to be expected of anything involving time travel, and the script gets very twisty, taking on a "don't think about this too hard" stance. The family stuff is all great, the sci-fi and action is all a bit much, and the comedy beats are all fine but a bit too shticky. If you love Ryan Reynolds, you will love this movie, and if you don't love him, you will hate it. If you're ambivalent about him, as I am, then you will be fairly lukewarm. This movie is a perfectly tepid way to spend an afternoon, so if you've run out of things on your Netflix queue, throw it on and give it a shot. After all, Netflix claims it's the fifth-most watched movie on their service, so you might as well see what all the fuss is about!