The Lost City of Z 2017

Well, this was certainly an ambitious film. Viewers cycle between scenes in Ireland, England, "Amazonia" and even the front lines during World War I. Even though the movie was already long, I thought some of the jumping around was a little too rushed. For instance, Percy and his half-starved, beleaguered crew make it to one of their destinations somewhere down the river, and I thought, damn, they might not make it back, but then the next scene just jumps willy-nilly back to England. It was so jarring, I thought the scene in England was a dream sequence. They almost died getting to that point on the river; how on earth did they get back to the "safe" part of the jungle? In any case, the cinematography here was excellent, as were the performances of Charlie Hunnam, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller. The movie had a great supporting cast as well. We apparently don't know what happened to the real guy, so the film handled the ambiguity of the ending as well as it could have. I loved the final scene, where his wife, Nina, exits the building and in a mirror, the viewer sees her walk through what looks like jungle vegetation, and we here birds in the distance. I'm not sure if that bit of symbolism was supposed to mean the jungle and Percy's ambition effectively consumed Nina and her family or that part of Nina died or was lost alongside Percy, in South America. In either case, I thought it was a really interesting way to end the film.

This one will be a hard movie for me to judge. I'm just going to have to voice whatever comes to my mind as I'm typing, because this was a very interesting and all-over-the-place kind of experience for me.

Alright, so basically, Percy Fawcett is a British officer commissioned to lead an expedition to find a hidden city in the middle of South America. You pretty much know what the movie is going to be like just based on that short description.

Charlie Hunnam does a great job playing a troubled husband who becomes gradually more obsessed with finding this city, but it's not like he goes insane as a result. Throughout the whole movie, he just wants to find it. It's not like he gets PTSD from exploring the jungle and it cripples his interactions with his family.

In fact, the final expedition has him voyaging off with his son, who actually pleaded to join him. There's a great scene in the middle where this oldest son, played by - 's Tom Holland, starts to chastise his father for abandoning his children and his wife, to which Percy slaps his son as he walks towards him. What makes the scene great is how realistic it is. Families have these kind of dramatic quarrels all the time, and it doesn't affect Percy and his son's interactions. This takes place before the son wants to join him on the expedition.

Robert Pattinson excellently plays Henry Costin, who voluntarily joins Percy after finding out about the expedition, revealing he has knowledge of the Amazonia. I didn't even recognize it was Pattinson until about halfway through the movie, but his acquaintanceship with Hunnam was very natural and likable.

Sienna Miller does a good job with the material she's given. I don't recall her having any giant dramatic moments, just her getting annoyed every now and then. They try to throw in some "feminist" message at one point in the movie, but it doesn't go anywhere and doesn't amount to anything. Still, she did a nice job with what she had.

I think the best way I would describe this movie to someone else is, "It's like if they took and and mixed them up as they please." It's a daring exploration movie that feels like it was made in the 90's. It's a period-piece movie that has the camera work and framing of a movie that was made with 1990's equipment. That sounds like a weird way of describing the visuals of the movie, but you'll see what I mean when you watch it.

Another weird point of the visual style that I kind of liked was the odd choice in the color palette. There are no pure whites anywhere in the movie. It was color corrected to have yellows in the white highs of the saturation. It gives the movie this dreamy feel, something I only started to really notice about towards the middle. Like, the clouds in the sky are fucking yellow. It's weird, but I like it.

The ending is very bold and a little sad, but it's based on a true story, so I can't expect them to have done something different. I'm not going to spoil it and I implore you to not look it up before-hand. Go see it without knowing.

I liked the movie a lot, it's always nice to see something fresh come out into theaters, and I definitely look forward to reviewing more of these kind of movies in the future. (Getting really sick of superhero movies, to be honest). I just think it needed to be tightened up a tiny bit in editing and needed a little better of a soundtrack. Otherwise, it was a great experience.