Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

A compelling watch, "The Lost City of Z" tells the putative story of Percy Fawcett, a geographer who is initially commissioned to map the boundary of Bolivia and Brazil. He goes beyond his mission at some point and starts to believe a complex civilization once existed in the Amazon basin, a belief that, in the early 20th century, was preposterous to the minds of ruling Whites across the world. His subsequent explorations find him often at the point of a knife but he withholds skepticism. And rightly so. For worse or better, explorers, cartographers, etc., have filled in all the blank spots on the map - many with brute force, many with humility. Fawcett perhaps pioneered the notion that, even though we can't see all of it, it might just be there. In the cauldron of the Amazon basin, the basics of civilization must degrade rapidly in the heat and moisture. Imagine Ancient Rome plunged into it. The stone would erode under the relentless rain and the serpentine roots of vegetation; the river would replace the catacomb; and all else - papyrus, robes, swords and spears - would rot or find themselves so deep in the loam they would never be found. But the Romans were White! And that is where Fawcett shook his head in dismay. Written well, acted well (with Robert Pattinson putting in a subtle, noteworthy performance yet again as part of his penance for the "Twilight" saga) and beautifully photographed, there is little reason not to recommend this film. The actual story will never be fully known but it probably resembled this. And the director's intent to film it like it was truly happening sur la vif makes it all the more tempting.