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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 35.04%
Worth A Look: 37.96%
Just Average: 9.49%
Pretty Crappy: 11.68%
Sucks: 5.84%
8 reviews, 89 user ratings
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| Apocalypto |
by Dawn Taylor
"Just in time for Christmas -- Disney's "Mayan Vivisection Adventure!"
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With his recent alcohol-fueled, anti-Semitic kerfuffle with the Malibu police, it’s difficult to separate Mel Gibson’s real-life shenanigans from his work as a director. Given the themes of faith and a civilization’s ultimate downfall in his latest picture, perhaps one shouldn’t watch the Mayan thriller “Apocalypto” without remaining mindful of Gibson’s radical Catholic beliefs.And yet, this is a surprisingly mainstream action picture – albeit a really freaky one with a whole lot of gore – with moments of real beauty and suspense scattered amid the almost non-stop violence.
Shot in the jungle on digital video and cast with a collection of indigenous natives, Hispanic actors and Native Americans who speak their lines in the Mayan tongue (the film is subtitled), the story focuses on a village chieftain’s son, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), who serves as an analog for Gibson’s Passion of the Christ version of Jesus – an almost superhumanly strong hero who endures the destruction of his village, the slaughter of his father and a near-miss with a temple priest’s knife to run through the jungle and ultimately turn the tables on his captors.
The film is drenched with Gibson’s unique brand of crazy, with Apocalypto coming off as a sort of a fantasy in which Jesus, after suffering the more brutal lashings and beatings at the hands of the Centurians, is able to escape into the jungle and turn into Rambo.
His view of the Mayans is laid out at the beginning of the film with a quote from Will Durant – “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” The beatings, scalpings, stabbings and gushing buckets of blood that accompany the attack on Jaguar Paw’s village are merely a prelude to the set-piece atop the temple steps when the captured men are served up for sacrifice and their still-beating hearts are cut from their chests.
The journey through the teeming Mayan city to that point could be used as footage for anti-immigration propaganda films, as thousands of brown-skinned people butcher animals in the streets, cough up blood as they’re forced to mine rocks, and enthusiastically cheer each severed head that’s bounced down the temple stairs. The Mayans may have had an impressively advanced civilization for their time, but Gibson presents it all as an unsanitary trip through a Third World version of Gomorrah.
Gibson indulges his love for pornographic levels of violence throughout, and the historical accuracy of it all is questionable, but one can’t dismiss “Apocalypto” entirely. As with “Passion,” this is a film made by someone who’s seriously disturbed, but not without talent. It’s all quite fascinating in the same way that one slows down to look at a particularly gruesome multi-car collision – you don’t really want to see it, but you can’t look away.You may not agree with Gibson’s politics or with his view of ancient cultures, but one thing’s for certain – it’s sure to be the best R-rated Mayan adventure film with graphic depictions of vivisection that you’ll see this holiday season. Just don’t eat a big meal first.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=15289&reviewer=413
originally posted: 12/08/06 14:03:53
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2006 Fantastic Fest For more in the 2006 Fantastic Fest series, click here.
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USA
08-Dec-2006 (R)
DVD: 22-May-2007
UK
N/A
Australia
11-Jan-2007
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