RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Check out the new RT Community
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Box Office
  • | Best Of
  • | Certified Fresh
  • | Showtimes
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
Movies / On DVD / The Lost City
The Lost City

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Add to List
  • Buy Poster External Icon
  • Visit Official Site External Icon
Bookmark and Share

The Lost City (2006)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
26 %
Tomatometer
Template ImageTemplate Image

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

Reviews Counted:82

Fresh:21

Rotten:61

Average Rating:4.7/10

Consensus: Its heart is in the right place, but what starts as a promising exercise devolves into an overlong, unevenly directed disappointment.

Rated: 15

Runtime: 2 hrs 23 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:05-12-2008

Synopsis: The Lost City is actor/director Andy Garcia’s bittersweet lyric celebration of Cuban culture that took him 16 years to make. Using music, literature and dance, City captures Havana in full... The Lost City is actor/director Andy Garcia’s bittersweet lyric celebration of Cuban culture that took him 16 years to make. Using music, literature and dance, City captures Havana in full tropical bloom during the late 1950s. Where Buena Vista Social Club commemorated an era of Cuban music before it slipped away, City captures the moment where performers like Beny More electrified audiences with that rhythm, a rhythm that made Havana the Pearl of the Antilles. Scripted by Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, whom critic David Thomson likened to Jorge-Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marques, City builds like a vivid tropical fever-dream; a love story and revolution set to music. Centered in El Tropico, a nightclub roughly modeled after Havana’s famous Tropicana, proprietor Fico Fellove tries to hold his family and club together as the dictator Batista’s reign of terror comes crashing down around him. Ultimately, to survive, Fico must leave everything he loves. City is every immigrant’s story—a paean to lost culture. It’s a time and place in history that still lives vividly in the imagination of the exile. And as conjured by Infante and Garcia, this is a land where rhythm can’t be exiled. You can leave the country, but the rhythm will never leave you. Along with its original score, City sings with 40 different songs. Mambos, chachachas, rumbas, toques, danzones, boleros. Together they create an oral history of Cuba. They are love songs to an indomitable culture—a culture that reveals itself in music, but also in dance, in poetry, in Catholicism, in African and European heritages, in Revolution, in tobacco, in Santeria and the azure sky and water that surround the island. These are the residents of The Lost City. -- © Lions Gate Films [More]

Starring: Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, Inés Sastre

Starring: Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, Inés Sastre, Jsu Garcia

Director: Andy Garcia

Director: Andy Garcia
Screenwriter: G. Cabrera Infante
Producer: Frank Mancuso
Studio: Lions Gate Films

[See More Credits]

Reviews for The Lost City

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

‘The Lost City’ is intriguing as a historical document and adequate as cinema, but it has a blandness at its core that no amount of spicy mambo and booty-quaking dance routines can disguise.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
12/05/08
Tom Huddlestone
Tom Huddlestone
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

There may be a good film here, but it struggles to break free of the cumbersome framework.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
12/05/08
Stella Papamichael
Stella Papamichael
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Andy Garcia’s preposterous vanity project The Lost City is an all-singing, all-dancing version of the Cuban Revolution.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
12/05/08
James Christopher
James Christopher
Times [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The script is scrupulously even-handed, but Garcia can't seem to get a grip on this sprawl.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
12/05/08
Cath Clarke
Cath Clarke
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Great music and costumes, but with a woeful plot and jaw-droppingly stilted dialogue. Cuban-born Garcia's main complaint against Fidel seems to be that rich, corrupt Cubans could no longer dance the night away.

Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | comment Comment
12/05/08
David Gritten
David Gritten
Daily Telegraph
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Not an embarrassment, but definitely a missed opportunity.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
12/05/08
Rob Daniel
Rob Daniel
Sky Movies

Andy Garcia's directorial debut is a flawed and overlong but nonetheless watchable drama with strong performances, a superb soundtrack and bizarre appearances from Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
12/04/08
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

Unfolds like a series of as outtakes from Hollywood productions

Full Review Source: CinePassion | comment Comment
08/30/09
Fernando F. Croce
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | comment Comment
11/20/08
Michael Szymanski
Michael Szymanski
Hollywood.com

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
08/07/08
Jim Lane
Jim Lane
Sacramento News & Review

Garcia obviously has more ambition than skill.

Full Review Source: Cinematical | comment Comment
09/18/07
Christopher Campbell
Christopher Campbell
Cinematical

Garcia is just too earnest to make his dream project anything but deadly dull.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
03/01/07
Eric Monder
Eric Monder
Film Journal International

It's by no means a flawless film, but it's a meaty one, and if you're a big fan of Andy Garcia, I'd definitely recommend it. (Plus, Bill Murray's in there.)

Full Review Source: DVD Clinic | comment 1 Comment
08/30/06
Scott Weinberg
Scott Weinberg
DVD Clinic

When it succeeds, the film conveys a bittersweet longing for a lost moment and the unfulfilled promise of a democratic Cuba.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
08/01/06
Sheri Linden
Sheri Linden
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

...plays like a confusing and inferior Caribbean analog to The Godfather, without anything like the narrative drive of Coppola's film.

Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | comment Comment
07/22/06
Philip Martin
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

While the soundtrack of Cuban dance music is superb, this historical drama is leaden and simply too long-winded for its own good.

Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City | comment Comment
07/14/06
Jeff Vice
Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

Shapeless stories that drift away from the revolution, puffed up by a biased take on 1959 Cuba with the hot air of romance.

Full Review Source: Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada) | comment 1 Comment
07/01/06
Brian Gibson
Brian Gibson
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

Garcia's storytelling lacks highs and lows and has far too much going on. And on.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
07/01/06
Liz Braun
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies

The result has a potluck rather than persuasive, integrated quality.

Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
06/30/06
Duane Dudek
Duane Dudek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

For a tribute to a lost city, Garcia has made a lost film.

Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star | comment Comment
06/29/06
Phil Villarreal
Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
See All

More DVDs

Top Rentals
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
36% 36% G.I. Joe: The Rise of …
52% 52% The Taking of Pelham 1…
45% 45% Ice Age: Dawn of the D…
19% 19% Transformers: Revenge …
55% 55% Orphan

More Rentals…

New On DVD This Week
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
98% 98% Up
88% 88% Ballast
66% 66% The Merry Gentleman

More New Releases…

What’s Hot On RT

Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia

Your first look at the swashbuckler.

Vampires

Vampires

We rank cinema's bloodsuckers.

Avatar

Avatar

The full trailer for Cameron's epic.

2012

2012

12 facts about Emmerich's disaster flick.

Other News

  • Top Stories
  • Popular
  • Interviews
 
 

Comments

 
 
Top Stories
Headlines Comments
  
  • Weekly Ketchup: Rachel McAdams Reads for Spider-Man 4
111
  • Rachel McAdams Rumored for Spider-Man 4 Source: Mania.com
162
  • Danny Elfman Leaves The Wolfman Source: Cinemusic.net
29
  • Oldboy Remake Rumored Dead Source: Latino Review
20
  • Francis Lawrence Directing a Futuristic Sgt. Rock Source: Hollywood Reporter
3
  • Can Avatar Make Money? Source: New York Times
121
  • Robert Pattinson Says Breaking Dawn Could Roll in Fall 2010 Source: Collider.com
38
  • Joe Johnston Talks The Wolfman Source: Ain't It Cool News
8
  • Jason Schwartzman Talks Scott Pilgrim Source: Collider.com
1
  • Weekly Ketchup: Abrams eyes Micronauts, Aykroyd as Yogi Bear
102
Popular
Headlines Comments
  
  • Total Recall: John Cusack's Best Movies
93
  • Five Favorite Films with Roland Emmerich
78
  • Critics Consensus: 2012 Isn't Quite Earth-Shaking
44
  • Weekly Ketchup: Rachel McAdams Reads for Spider-Man 4
37
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: Christmas Carol Tops, Precious Rocks
34
  • Five Favourite Films with Ang Lee
29
  • 10 Movies That Changed The (End Of The) World
28
  • Friday Harvest: Clash of the Titans, Kick-Ass, and more!
22
  • James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
4
  • RT's Holiday Movie Preview -- Find Out What's Hot This Season!
0
Interviews
Headlines Comments
  
  • James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
4
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview
15
  • Terry Gilliam Talks Doctor Parnassus
15
  • Wes Anderson Talks Fantastic Mr. Fox - RT Interview
8
  • Wolverine Creator Len Wein Talks About the Film
28
  • Gavin Hood Talks Wolverine; Possible Sequel
28
  • Duncan Jones talks Moon, Sam Rockwell, and Mute
14
  • Emma Stone talks Zombieland - RT Interview
40
  • Michael Moore: The RT Interview
139
  • Andrea Arnold talks Fish Tank - RT Interview
4
 
 

Sponsored Links

Around The Network

  • The Lost City at Rotten Tomatoes
  • The Lost City at IGN
  • The Lost City at AskMen

Fresh Links

Featured
RT on YouTube
RT on YouTube External Link

Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.

RT on Twitter
RT on Twitter External Link

Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo

IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive | Green Pixels


By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2009, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.