Alright got another edition. I don't have much to say for an opening so let's get to it.
Why Didn't I See The Lost Bus?
Well if you read on the poster the movie says it was playing in select theaters, and my theaters were not the chosen few. But I saw it was gonna come out on October 3rd when it came to streaming. Then I found The Smashing Machine was releasing on that day and give it a watch instead. Now I could've saved a review for Monday of that month but I also decided to see Good Boy instead. So I cut my loses and saved a review for later. By the way, The Smashing Machine is great but I strongly recommended you watch Good Boy.
What is The Lost Bus?
The Lost Bus is a survival drama that's based on the 2021 book Paradise by Lizzie Johnson. This portrays a fictionalized verison of the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California. Productions was done by Apple Studios, Blumhouse Productions, and Comet Pictures with Apple Original Films acting as the distributor. Paul Greengrass directed and wrote the screenplay with Brad Ingelsby.
The story is, on Nov 18th, 2018 high winds and dry conditions lead by a Pacific Gas & Electric transmission line failure ignite a fire, because of this combination the fire's embers quickly spread throughout northern California creating multiple spot fires. During the chaos 22 children are unable to leave their school because their parents work out of town and won't be able to get to them. Luckily struggling school bus driver Kevin McKay is able to pick them up along the kids' teacher Mary Ludwig. Even though the fires are getting worse and worse by the minute Kevin is determined to the get kids and Mary to safety.
My Thoughts
The Good: One praise I gotta give is Greengrass' directing. While I slightly criticized his directing in The Uprising, I think it worked much better here. Greengrass really made you feel like you're in this terrifying wildfires. Everywhere our characters turn there's dense smoke, flaming buildings, something is falling, and burning embers are flying in every direction. It was an experience that had me on the edge of my seat (or couch since I was streaming it). I also gotta praise the effects team, they deserve a round of applause. Sure there's some instances where CGI was used, but 99.99% of the time the fire effects are actually real. Thanks to a mixer of visual effects, digital enhancements, controlled gas lines among other things, the effects team made amazing inferno effects. It makes me want to see behind the scenes footage to see the breakdown of how this was done. My last praise goes to Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera's performances. McConaughey really grounds the movie playing a tired struggling everyman. What McConaughey also does is show the fear that Kevin has to push down as much as possible. Because of that you really feel for the guy. He's not some slick action hero, he was just a guy who happened to be the only one who could help these kids and their teacher. And with Ferrera we see a woman who's just trying her best to comfort her students and give them hope. Together you're really rooting for these to succeed and that's thanks to McConaughey and Ferrera's acting.
The Bad: I've got nothing.
The Okay: Now I'll be honest, yes. Yes there's quite a few predictable moments. But those moments didn't make me roll my eyes because there actually pretty decently done. Also let's be honest once again a lot of disaster flicks have predictable elements to them. It should depend on how well those scenes are executed.
Final Verdict: Good.
So that'll wrap things up. Come back on Saturday, Sept 26th, for my review of the newest DreamWorks animated movie, Forgotten Island. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
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