Such a Disappointment

Rating: 1/10 (28 April 2018)

After reading the book this film was based on, I was so excited to hear it was being made into a feature film with Brad Pitt as the star no less. I see now why Brad had the good sense to bow out of this project. I have to say the acting and cinematography was fine, the script is what sinks this in the mud.
The book went into detail about Fawcett learning his explorers trade at the RGS and made it so fascinating! The film touched on the most mundane minutia of Fawcett's time with the RGS. It made me wonder why they even bothered with it at all? Most of all I was ready for a great Jungle story with all its horrors and heroics.
It was as if someone read this wonderful adventure book, picked out the boring bits ( there weren't many ) and made a film with the same name. Like filming War and Peace with the "War" left out. The book made sense of everything the film didn't. The why's and the reasoning behind everything Fawcett and Nina did. The book also told the story of the author's research, a back story almost as interesting as Fawcett's.
Facts that were intentionally deleted to make the film more appealing. Such as Fawcett being bald in his twenties. The lush head of hair Mr Hunnam sported, bothered me as much as if you had an actor with Dreadlocks play Winston Churchill. The WW1 trench scenes, the "over the top" charge, in reality never happened. Fawcett was an artillery Lieutenant Colonel pushing 50 and never got close enough to the front lines for any of those clichéd heroics. That's even if the brass would have let him try them in the first place.
Lastly Fawcett's Son's friend Raleigh Rimmel who went along on the last expedition was totally left out? As I sat there wondering why such a Great story was so disfigured, the scene in the native village is shown, Walmart Tiki torches with wicks, lining the way to the river! Really? Maybe today but Not in 1925. I guess what is so maddening is this could have been another Bridge over the River Kwai or Lawrence of Arabia. Instead it's a boring, talky, overly long non-epic destined to be forgotten.