The Lost Bus (2025)

Rated R for a lot of cursing.  Not a lot a lot.  But, like, it seemed like they knew that they were going to get an R-rating, so they just threw the cursing in there.  Like, there are people on fire, but it's all kind of tame in terms of graphic violence.  It's intense because you are worried about a school bus full of kids dying in a horrible fire.  But it seems like it got the R-rating because of the language.  It's also weird that the two of them swear in front of the kids.  (Okay, I know it's a life-or-death situation.  Still.) 

DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass

One of my least favorite feelings is being behind on the blog.  It is such an unnecessary thing in my life and it slows me from watching other movies.  But I've also been so exhausted when I get home that I haven't been watching movies anyway.  So now that I think that I'm through the woods (pun not intended), I can get caught up on...let's check...oh.  The Lost Bus.

So my wife and I try watching all the Academy Award nominees before the actual Academy Awards.  It's something we both love to do.  But I also know that there aren't enough hours in the day for us to sit down and watch every movie on that list.  I already established that I am a very sleepy puppy.  So I watch the categories that she's a little less excited about.  These tend to be "Best Original Song," "Documentary Feature", and "Visual Effects."  The Visual Effects category is the one that she least minds me watching.  Some of these movies tend to be rough.  I don't think that The Lost Bus is rough.  I do say that I wouldn't be watching The Lost Bus if it wasn't for the Oscars though.

It's funny.  The Lost Bus and Deepwater Horizon feel like the same film to me.  Both of these movies I watched for the Academy Awards and the Academy Awards alone.  They are both survival movies based on real recent events with a slightly environmental tone (that seems almost to absolve issues with environmentalism).  But there is one thing that absolutely drives me bananas.  These are both stories about how "common sense wins out against intellectualism."  Don't get me wrong.  We're supposed to care about Mary in this story.  But Mary, as a dynamic character, changes way more than Kevin does.  If anything, this is a story about how Kevin is the only perfect character in the story.  

Yes, we're supposed to have sympathy for Kevin.  I'll even go as far as to say that's a solid message.  I like the notion that the working poor have so much more to deal with than employment. It's a lovely message.  But I don't like the fact that it's an either / or situation.  I know.  The movie implies that Kevin's respect for Mary grows as she steps up to more and more dangerous situations.  But the story, intentional or no, has the message that only certain people live in the real world.  Kevin is the product of "the real world."  He has kids who get sick.  He has an ex-wife who is unsympathetic to his father's death.  He's the one who has to mourn a father that he never cared for.  He did the right thing to take care of Shaun.  But having a protagonist where nothing is really his fault and everyone else kind of sucks, it undoes Die Hard.  

John McClane has ultimately becoming the template / archetype for this type of movie.  He's the guy who is down on his luck and has such a specific skill for keeping his head during a crisis.  While John is good at taking down terrorists, Kevin is good at: Bus.  He's good at bus.  But John McClane has real flaws that brought him to this place in his life.  He's hot-headed.  He is emotionally illiterate.  When he's trying to get Holly back (and ultimately loses her in the sequels), it's because of his own stubbornness.  Kevin --who I have to remind everyone is based on a real dude --has none of those faults.  It really does seem like his wife was being irrational.  It did seem like Shaun blames his dad for all of his teenage problems.  The worst thing that Kevin does is misdiagnose Shaun's stomach flu, which is part of parenting.  (Also, does Linda leave Kevin's very fragile mom at a rescue shelter as she drove Shaun away?) I think you need to have something for the protagonist to overcome.  It's a bummer that this movie keeps hitting the same beat over and over.

The funny thing is, that this is a movie with something to say.  Yes, it's a little bit of that "Our government is the real hero" mentality, but in a fairly good way (because I like firefighters?).  However, there is this final message at the end of the film given as text explaining the real story.  The movie ends with this text where we find out that a lot of the problems that happened were because of Pacific Power, which is an anti-corporate message.  But the thing is...the movie doesn't hit it that hard.  I feel bad for the actor who had to play the Pacific Power rep because that had to be the most thankless roll.   They hired a guy, made him look smarmy, and had him continually apologize for the power not being off when it was supposed to be off.  It's this thing that seems like it could be pretty important.  But instead, it's an afterthought.  Like, we needed a bad guy for this movie, so we have this Donald Gennaro type from Jurassic Park.  Maybe the frustration I have in this movie is that everything is just a bit too simple.  Kevin is a bit too noble.  Mary is a bit too naive.  The heroes are so heroic and the bad guy is only a bad guy.  It's kind of one of those things that roots for common sense as the only attitude to advance.

It's such a basic movie that there's almost nothing to talk about.  Now, I associate Paul Greengrass with the Bourne movies.  These movies are amazingly shot.  And, to be fair, The Lost Bus is pretty well shot.  It's a tricky concept, having the location being one giant blaze while the characters stay on the bus.  But the thing that I don't think that my brain would let go of is the idea that the Bourne movies are almost too complex while The Lost Bus is almost too simple of a film.  Like, it feels like there are beats in the movie that are thrown in there simply to give the film any kind of complexity.  There's this thing about Mary.  I don't know if this is true about the real Mary or not.  I don't think it really matters because I have to believe that this film took its fair share of liberties.  But Mary had never left her home town.  The big regret for her character isn't getting back to her family.  It's the idea that she's embraced her small life to zealously.  But I can tell you, I never really cared about that beat.  I know that Greengrass wants me to give something for Mary.  But I found Mary to be a one note character that never really felt human.  

As a visual effects thing, which is what the film is nominated for, it's pretty good.  And if you really shut your brain off and have a good time with it, it's pretty easy to do.  But in terms of any kind of meat to this story, it's a little bit of that backdoor patriotism that is fine, but not fulfilling.  I don't think that there's a challenging idea in this entire film.