Review of The Lost City of Z 2016 Full Movie

Review of The Lost City of Z 2016 Full Movie: The Lost City of Z is an old school adventure set at the start of the twentieth century as a British soldier and explorer Percy Fawcett is given the task of mapping the little-known area of Bolivia with the intention of preventing a war with neighboring Brazil. Fawcett takes great sacrifices to complete his mission to the detriment of his relationship with his wife and sons. While in the jungles of Bolivia his team come under attack from local tribes, suffer disease and starvation. Despite this, Fawcett continued to return to the Amazon to complete his task, slowly becoming obsessed with finding an Ancient lost city which he discovers archaeological evidence for. 

His mission is delayed with the outbreak of the First World War but he returns years later with his son and this is where the mystery of the story lies as this was his final mission as he was never to return. It might be for you. So this is about a British explorer (Charlie Hunnam). He gets commissioned to help chart the Amazon, but in doing so, he becomes preoccupied with discovering a lost city in the jungle. When he doesn't find it that first time, he becomes obsessed; he returns on multiple expeditions, determined to prove that there is civility amongst the "savages". 

If there is a genre of movie that I have the hardest time connecting with, it is the period piece of biographical drama. I'm not saying that they are bad, I am just saying that I know myself, and I get antsy the majority of the time that I watch them. The Lost City of Z is not without its moments, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't get a little fidgety. Now I do realize that this is a big old case of "it's not you, it's me," and the majority of the people I know have dug this.

There are numerous issues not with the script but with the execution. Going to the source means going upstream, which they were not. And one horse appeared out of nowhere. Points are made about the Englishes though, that resonates true, and the natives, that resonates true. The people seem not to care, but the history proves that people did not care much for life in these days. The Englishes more than any others (except the Germans).

Although the material seems perfect for a film - an explorer travels the uncharted border between Brazil and Bolivia along the Amazon River in the early 20th century - somehow the execution lets things down. Perhaps it is the "Masterpiece Theatre" treatment that keeps things stately and stodgy? A quick comparison with Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) which admittedly placed its Amazonia voyage a few centuries earlier, shows how dynamic and real-seeming this sort of film could be (cue Klaus Kinski and spider monkeys).

Instead, director James Gray somehow reduces the tension within the film, despite the physical challenges faced by the explorer, Percy Fawcett (played by Charlie Hunnam), and the moral/political conflict between him and the establishment. Of course, some of the problems could be due to the rather earnest style of acting by Hunnam and others which comes across as stylized or phony only Robert Pattison, playing Fawcett's aide-de-camp, seems natural and charismatic. Yet, the story of Fawcett, who ended up disappearing in 1925, is interesting enough that I looked him up on Wikipedia later. And the cinematography by Darius Khondji does offer some beautiful shots in beautiful locations. But the film is over-long, misuses Siena Miller (as Fawcett's suffragette wife), and squanders whatever chances it had for something really special. Too bad.

The lost city of Z has a lot of great visuals and even some great acting. However, it is very slow and quite frankly not that interesting of a story. I struggled to stay awake in this one. It is way too long and too poorly paced. It doesn't really have a lot of entertainment value either, so if you are looking to be entertained this is not the movie for you. Also, I found myself not really liking the main character very much. That made it really hard to watch a 2 and a half hour movie about him.

He abandons his family, leaving his wife raising the kids by herself so he can explore the jungle so he can find some lost city. If he finds it, then so what? His kids grew up fatherless and some city that really would have no effect on the world gets found. If it was something a bit more important than trying to feed his own ego, maybe I would have cared more. Like I said before, this movie is done well in many technical aspects of acting, visual, cinematography, etc. But the story and character aspects were kind of dull or hard to care about.