The Lost Bus came out a couple of weeks ago on Apple TV and this thing is a serious throwback to when disaster movies actually meant something like you really care for what this man is doing and wtf is going to happen with everyone on the bus, specially after the California fire this year, we are talking early 2010s type stuff where everything felt real and had actual meaning, none of that CGI nonsense that makes you feel like you are watching a video game instead of a movie. Matthew McConaughey plays Kevin McCay who is basically a total mess of a bus driver, like he is just bad at life in general, bad dad, bad at his job, moved back to his hometown to take care of his aging mother kind of guy and then one day he gets tasked with moving about 22 kids from one school to another because a wildfire is coming through Paradise California. Problem is by the time he realizes the whole damn town needs evacuating his radio is dead, phone is useless, and when he gets to the drop off school its literally on fire and everyone already left, so now this guy has to save these kids when its already way too late, talk about being put in a completely shit situation that nobody asked for.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21103218/
- Platform: AppleTV+
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The movie does a great job on so many levels even when it probably should not work at all, it gets going fast like the wildfire breaks out maybe 15 minutes in and from there it does not stop for the next hour and forty five minutes. America Ferrera plays Mary Ludwig the teacher and both characters are kind of basic felt basic since there is not much context to them or back story so she is just a teacher, in the case of Kevin needs redemption for being a crap dad and she never left her small town and now might die there but the movie does not need deep character development when the action is this damn good and intense, its like the classic situation that the walls are getting closer and closer, in this case its fire and the environment does the trick for the movie, just need to let the actors go run wild. Paul Greengrass who directed this also did stuff like Captain Phillips and United 93 so he knows how to make you feel like you are about to have a heart attack just watching people try to survive impossible situations, Im a sucker for camera angles and on this movie we got all that shaky and documentary style which some people hate but I think it works perfect for this type of movie because it makes everything feel more real and in your face for the most part of the movie even when they trying to take a breath, you wont feel the actual fire but for sure at some point feel completely wiped out and drained like you are actually watching through a window whats happening to this people, theres this one part where they are surrounded by fire and Mary tells Kevin maybe we should let the kids go to sleep that way if the fire comes they wont feel it or know it, that scene is absolutely stupid but what else can they do, you feel destroyed emotional and I was not expecting to feel that much from a disaster movie but here we are, who in their right mind going to try to put 22 kids to sleep and tell me one of those kids who will go to sleep in such situation but its ok, for some audience that might be heartbreaking.
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From what I look up online find out that its based on the real 2018 Camp Fire in California that killed 85 people and knowing that makes it hit way different, again considering the wild fire in 2025 where for the first time I saw on TV hell itself like way way different than if this was just some made up Hollywood bullshit, the movie uses real cell phone footage from people who were actually escaping Paradise that day and those moments are the most powerful parts of the whole thing because you know those are real people going through real terror. The cast is pretty solid overall even though some of the side characters dont get much to do, McConaughey and Ferrera are carrying this thing on their backs and they do a damn good job of it, McConaughey especially takes it to a higher level with material that could have been pretty generic in someone else hands but he makes you believe this guy is just trying to do the right thing even though lifes been kicking his ass for years, after all he is Mr. Interstellar. Ferrera does not get as much to work with but shes good at showing this teacher who stayed in Paradise her whole life thinking it was safe and now shes about to die there with a bus full of kids she barely knows, theres some real emotion there even if the script does not give her a ton of depth to work with most of the time.
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Obviously the movie is not perfect and has some issues that bothered me so here some of them to make things fair, the first maybe 15 or 20 minutes tries to set up McConaugheys whole life situation with his ex wife Linda who keeps calling him while hes driving a school bus full of kids to argue about going to Colorado on vacation, you feel how its draining him and how annoying she is considering everything going on around with the fire. We also get scenes with his son who hates him and his mother stirring up drama and it all feels a little melodramatic but what is a movie that doesnt make you feel some way or another and I know the movie is just probably trying to make you care about Kevin's life but all that other stuff about his wife and kid just felt like filler that could have been cut down to maybe 5 minutes instead of 20. Theres also this weird scene where looters with guns try to hijack the school bus which felt completely out of place and kind of stupid, I was like damn is this "Speed"?, like I think this armed looters are totally out of place during the Camp Fire based on everything going on, it felt like they added that just to create more tension but it was unnecessary because the fire itself is scary enough without adding fake drama on top of it.
The other problem is the movie keeps cutting back to the fire command center where the Cali Fire battalion chief and his team are trying to figure out what to do and all those scenes are pretty flat and boring but I guess those are necessary too because someone is suppose to be getting things under control, although they all felt flat with zero connection to Kevin and the kids on the bus, those scenes needed way more emotional weight because these are people watching a whole town burn down and potentially hundreds of people dying but instead it just feels like checking boxes to make sure things are done by the book. I wish they had spent more time making those command center scenes actualy mean something instead of just being filler between the bus action sequences. Now the kids on the bus, you going to take one for the team and they just kids, these 22 children are basically just props in the background who occasionally say stuff like I dont want to die but we never get to know any of them as actual characters but then again its 22 kids so not enough time and space to know them all and build up their characters so it was expected they just the cargo.
But even with all those complaints I still think The Lost Bus is worth watching especially if you like disaster movies that feel grounded in reality, today I just put a thread about how much I wanted to watch San Andreas again but I guess because I still had this movie in the back of my head, the fire action sequences are intense and well done, the effects are mostly practical and look great and when the movie focuses on the bus trying to escape through burning roads and falling trees its just awesome scenes that had me actually caring for everything with the bus and the kids inside. That final sequence where they have to make a break for it through the fire is one of the best action scenes I have seen in a chaos situation that involve some kind of natural disaster or in this case a fire like this without making it look cartoonish or over the top, it feels real and terrifying which is exactly what it should feel like. McConaughey and Ferrera are both excellent even when the script lets Ferrera down, although I think McConaughey did a great job over all as he got most of the meat on the dialogues, I kept thinking about all the people who actually went through this and didnt make it out and that made the whole experience feel heavier, after this movie I honestly want to watch one based on the recent California fire. The movie could have been tighter and cut out a lot of the unnecessary family drama and given us more time with the actual fire escape, probably know the kids characters a way more, but what we got is still pretty solid overall and I think people will dig it if they go in knowing its more of a straightforward survival story than some deep character study, for me this is a solid 8 out of 10 for sure, not perfect but damn good at what its trying to do and way better than I was expecting based on the trailers.
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