A casual glance at RottenTomatoes.com reveals that there is nothing near a critical consensus on Apocalypto, the new film from contraversial actor and director Mel Gibson. Some of its supporters claim it "Smolders with cinematic fervor" and that it has "visuals worthy of Fellini or David Lynch". Its opponents say it's "pure amoral sensationalism" and "a lotta woe to sit through, with not much to think about an only one matter to adress." One guy even called it "the worst movie of the year."
It seems like we have another Fountain, an instant love it or hate it movie, which is why it's odd that I was in the middle. I didn't like it anywhere near as much as Gibson's great Braveheart, but also I didn't find it as boring or annoying as The Passion of the Christ. I admire Gibson's gaul to make a movie with no stars in an obscure language, but I also found it to be surprisignly predictable and only moderatly involving.
Set in the 16th century, the film is the story of a peaceful Mayan village that is destoryed by neighboring warriors. The adults are taken prisoner and the children are left to fend on their own. During the film continues, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) emerges from an ensamble as a protagonist. Before the village is complelty destroyed, he manages to hide his pregnant wife (Dalia Hernandez) and young son in to a well. After the massacre, the film becomes very simple: Jaguar Paw must somehow escape and free his wife and child before he is killed and they starve to death.
Although both the trailer and a movie begins and ends with a quote from philosopher Will Durant, implying some sort of deep statement about the end of civilizaion, the film is actually a pretty standard adventure story, and that's not really what I wanted to see. One of the pleasures of going to movies is that you get to see other cultures (both real and ficticious) that you could never see in real life, and it seems like a shame that Gibson uses so much screen time show some hardcore violence instead of elaborating on the culture. According to allmovie, Gibson worked with Maya scholar Richard D. Hansen to make sure the movie was super-accurate. The costumes, set design and art direction is all impressive as is the decision to shoot in theYukatek Mayan language, but after a while I stopped caring about what happens. There are only so many gruesome ways you can see somebody get killed, and it seems that Gibson is trying to make each death more bloody than the last. At times it seems like it was one of Peter Jackson's splatstick comedies instead of a supposedly "serious" movie.
The obvious film to compare Apocalypto to is Herzog's Aguirre, and this movie has nothing on that mystical masterpiece. Apocalyto is at its best in the early scenes, depicting the life of the Mayan village, and I would have preferd the whole movie like that, with no need for endless stunts and sacrifices. The cast is imprissive (Youngblood may become the first Native Ameircan star) but the movie is certainly not in the leauge of Fellini or Lynch, and is nowhere near the quality of even Braveheart. It's the worst of the year, either, but if Gibson is so willing to spend millions of his own dollars on a movie, he should show us something really original, not an old, old story in relativley new surroundings.
Apocalypto (2006)