The Lost City of Z (2016)

Percival Fawcett - intrepid explorer, whose exploits into charting the Amazon jungle in search of a mystical ancient civilization captivated the world and inspired a generation of adventure writers - would probably fall asleep during his own dour, flaccid biopic. Now, this isn't to say the only way to cinematically interpret Fawcett's life would be to whip-crack into full-blown Indiana Jones (though a film this allergic to fun could do far worse than shallow, Romancing the Stone mimesis). Instead, director James Gray strives to tap into Fawcett's mythos and mystique with the lyrical, abstract profundity of a Terrence Malick or Werner Herzog (indeed, his telling is irreconcilably indebted to Herzog's own parable of jungle madness, Fitzcarraldo). Sadly, he's too clumsy a director to commit to the kooky poetry of his thematic earmarks. Instead, his lolling sequences of Fawcett's crew wandering through the jungle or circumnavigating stuffy British Geographical Society politics - amazingly, equally drab and aimless - at times pleasantly hypnotic, but threaten to turn proceedings into The Lost City of ZZZzzzzzz.

Fawcett's memoirs tell of encounters with 60 foot snakes, deadly spiders, and enough peril and adventure to galvanize Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Lost World. These tales may have been tall (who's to say? are YOU going to forage through the jungle to fact check?), but it's a rare exercise in cinema purposefully downplaying the fun factor of its source material. The film starts promisingly: after an effectively squirmy opening with Fawcett failing to advance through the ranks of claustrophobic military culture in rural Ireland thanks to disgraced parentage, Gray bequeaths us a fun Ian McDarmid cameo as the evil Emperor of Geography, whose ominous monologue hypes the exotic perils of the jungle, stopping just shy of him purring "Goooood. Goooooood!" So far so good (gooooood!). But, after a thrilling (not) foray into the fine details of cartography, we finally follow Fawcett into the jungle. And wait. And walk. And wait. And cough. And fidget. And try not to check our phones, but my goodness, is that the time? But don't worry: you've two hours of more of the same awaiting you.

(I could tell, as a Canadian viewer, that my crowing this triumphantly at hearing the titular legend correctly[!] pronounced as 'Zed' rather than the customary big-screen 'Zee,' was a sign of how dire the cinematic experience was here )

One brief sequence, where Fawcett's raft and crew are besieged by indigenous arrows, only to meet a bloody end by looming piranhas, plays as a lively prelude to more thrilling adventures to come. Instead, it's the activity high point, an uneasily early climax paving the way to two thirds of increasingly diminishing content. There's no facts, literature, or even conjecture to establish even the skeleton of a mythology enough to share Fawcett's burning desire to unearth the titular lost civilization, apart from a few nonchalant shards of pottery, quickly whisked away from. Instead, we're reminded that the film shares a production team with 12 Years a Slave, and is thereby a Film With an Important Social Message. Behold: lengthy, awkward, anachronistic shoehorned-in diatribes shooting for feminism and anti-colonial racial equality instead playing as Hallmark pandering, patronizing asides of white saviourism. Think of Brad Pitt's uncomfortably didactic, self-congratulatory monologue in 12 Years a Slave. Now

Fmovies: I'm sad to say that I was disappointed by this film in almost every aspect. It seems to me that the biggest problem it has is the pacing. For a two and a half hour long film, pacing is important to keep the viewers engaged and this movie just gets it completely wrong. It feels like three movies clumsily stuffed into one, and as if that wasn't enough, it adds a bunch of utterly irrelevant scenes which could have easily been cut out of the movie entirely. I, for one, was expecting to see at least some beautiful cinematography, but the movie fails to deliver even in the aesthetic aspect. I was also expecting to see a lot more of the actual journey to the Amazon, but instead we got scene after boring scene in England, where nothing of importance really happens. After about an hour and a half I was left wondering how so many critics found this movie watchable, desperately trying not to fall asleep. To make matters even worse, Charlie Hunnam delivers an awful performance and makes for an overall uninteresting lead. Surprisingly, the only performance worth watching in this film was, out of all people, Robert Pattinson. I'm certainly glad he's moving away from his Twilight years and I hope to see him in more roles like this one in the future. Overall, this was a forgettable, boring, mess of a movie.

It's one of those labor of loves it seems as the film felt like it was more interested in making an artistic narrative than it was about making money. I can respect that, but it was a boring movie for that reason.

The Lost city of Z is about a British explorer named Percy Fawcett who while on a survey mission in the amazon discovers evidence that the "savages" once had a civilization the might even be older than the one he came from and spends his life trying to find it.

I loved Charlie Hunnam in it. Hands down, his most grown up acting performance, and really made Fawcett a compelling man to follow. In fact the whole cast was impressive with Sienna Miller as Fawcett's wife and Robert Patterson who I totally did not recognize under the bread as Fawcett's most trusted companion on his trips. Tom Holland is also in the movie as Fawcett's oldest son who joins him on his last journey to the amazon. Other people gave great performances, but these are the ones I knew by name, making it a pretty stellar cast for me.

While this movie does such a great job making Fawcett's life look fascinating,following him through his time with the army to his time as an explorer, I must admit that the slow burn of the narrative almost put me to sleep. It reminds me of another project Brad Pitt (who produced the movie) was evolved in, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Though the Lost City of Z is not as painfully slow (Notice the tile is half that of the Jesse James movie), the combination of the quiet tone and it's speed was not something I wanted to sit in a movie theater and watch. It's not that the movie is long, it's that it feels long, and it feels like something that the movie does on purpose.

I feel like the movie tries to gives us the realest accounts of a man's life as they can and I can respect that, but man, the two hours and thirty minutes this film comes in at was not easy at all to get through. That's just my warning.

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The Lost City of Z fmovies. It's very rare in 2017 Hollywood that we get an epic like The Lost City of Z. Albeit noticeably flawed in many aspects, this film hearkens back to the days where exploration epics were a normalcy in the filmmaking world.

The strengths of The Lost City of Z lie with its unique journey the protagonist takes, and not necessarily with the protagonist or the film itself. What I mean by that is that I think the actual story the film is based on is more interesting than how the film portrays it. Sometimes biopics that span a great length of time are difficult to effectively portray on the big screen. Because 'Z' takes place over the course of roughly 20 years, it becomes increasingly tough to grapple onto something worth enjoying. Every time one of his explorations seems to get interesting, we get interrupted by his abrupt return to civilization and more family drama. Whether or not that's how the true story of Percy Fawcett went is irrelevant. Sometimes it takes some tweaking to make for an entertaining feature length film.

Charlie Hunnam plays Fawcett, an explorer who seeks glory in finding a mysterious city of people which has "never been touched by a white man". Fawcett himself is an interesting character, especially when the film dives into his own psychology and obsession over 'Z'. He's a lot like Matthew McConaughey's character from Interstellar, always searching for something nobody has seen before even if means leaving his family for years at a time. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Fawcett isn't very likable. We constantly see him leave his family even though, with the exception of war, he has a choice in the matter.

There is something to admire about someone, or in this case multiple people, who keep searching for the dreams no matter the cost. Fawcett, along with a few consistent compadres, go on dangerous expeditions through the jungle to find what they think is a real lost city. The aspects of the film I enjoy the most are watching men go through hardships in search of something they truly care about. In this regard, the film is a fascinating exploration physically and mentally.

Aside from Hunnam, there are a few great performances from Sienna Miller as Nina Fawcett, Robert Pattinson as Henry Costin, and Tom Holland as Jack Fawcett. All elevating each scene they are in and making the journey worth it for sure. There's a lot this film does well, including making a lasting impact on viewers minds in terms of exploration, but the writing can be a little bit more polished with certain changes made to fit a movie and not just serve the story properly. There's a happy medium there that I think could have benefited the final product.

+The Story

+Brings back a lost genre

-Uncharismatic characters

-Uneven script

6.7/10

I enjoyed the movie - it was a bit paint by numbers but it covered a huge area of his life and his motivations, it was also a story of decline, the derring-do of the British empire and particular type of hero. I think that he has been overlooked because he 'failed' but the film shows how he respected the cultures he found, in contrast to the other members of RGS. The class-based snobbery of the period is also well represented. Highly watchable and recommended.

This is the first review I have ever contributed to IMDb which I use on a regular basis to inform my viewing choices but I feel compelled to write it as the high ratings are so unjustified I feel I have a duty to share my experience and balance the 7.4 (!!!!) score. I went into this with high expectations... every ingredient was present to potentially make this my new favourite movie, unfortunately the script and narrative (if they originally  had one at all) failed to deliver.

My main problem was the narrative. The story takes place over a few decades and follows the efforts of Fawcett to discover the "Lost City of Z". He embarks on 3 "perilous" expeditions going up the Amazon but no sense of danger or suffering is at any point conveyed by the narrative.

 The 3 trips are each expedited under 20 minutes of screen time. We have absolutely no idea of the time involved (apparently the expeditions lasted a few years each) nor any feeling towards the hardships the crew faces. To make matters worse, new crew members keep appearing out of nowhere and at some point even a horse!! which was nowhere to be seen on the raft in previous scenes. If this was not enough.... the raft keeps going downstream when they are supposed to go UPSTREAM, towards the source of the river.... oh well, I could have lived with these inconsistencies if I had a character to root for. Unfortunately we never feel any sympathy towards any of the protagonists. The character development is non existent and not helped by the fact the acting is very stiff at the best of time and downright awful for most of the movie. I didn't find Charlie Hunnam convincing as a Hell's Angel in SOA but he is seriously laughable as an English Army officer. This absence of feeling and empathy is also to be experienced towards the wife and children he leaves behind, every time he embarks on one of those trips. We simply do not care for them.

I obviously did not go into it expecting a new Fitzcarraldo or Apocalypse Now but for a movie which should have dealt with a man's obsessive doomed quest for a Lost City, the jungle and/or the river should have been part and parcel of the movie, a character in itself, an omnipresent entity. No such thing. The whole movie could have been shot in a winter garden for all I saw... You never have the feeling you are in the mud with the protagonists. The only feeling you experience is one of utter detachment and an urge for the movie to finish as soon as possible.

Extremely disappointed. Do not believe the hype!