The production design is superb, and the actors deliver their dialogue in subtitled Yucatecan Maya, but despite all the anthropological drag, this is really just a crackerjack Saturday-afternoon serial.
To hell with the critics they are all puppets anyways. When it comes to this and Mel Gibsons other movies don't listen to the media. Just watch them they are some of the best movies you'll ever see.
Apocalypto, the movie that anguished me as a child is an inexplicably very good movie, perfect in what it is I would say. I love and find very interesting the culture and American indigenous peoples like mayans, aztecs, incas and etc, for me this movie has a good representation, although I often thought that the Mayans were good guys and Aztecs the ruthless, bloodthirsty, who sacrificed and ate the hearts of their enemies.
The movie develops well and at certain moments it punches your heart, I don't know if this is a Mel Gibson's talent because it's almost the same feeling that The Passion of Christ provides. The movie is fully spoken in a native Mayan language and this helps a lot in immersion (imagine indigenous people speaking English). The costumes are also another spectacular thing in this movie. I just found Jaguar Paw too resistant, I know he is the Great Jaguar of the prophecy, the protagonist and such, but running with 2 arrow holes in his body is **** up.
I don't know if you can be happy with the ending or sadder for the indigenous peoples, all of them this time. Incredible movie tho'
Apocalypto turns into the best "Rambo" movie ever made. The worrisome part is that Gibson doesn't think he's making a boneheaded action picture. For him, torture and vengeance are the way of the world. This is Gibsonian metaphysics.
Say what you will about Gibson, but he's a genuine filmmaker, and Apocalypto gallops along the thin line between the deluded and the inspired with such conviction that you're yanked into its wake.
Neither Mr. Gibson’s fans nor his detractors are likely to accuse him of excessive subtlety, and the effectiveness of Apocalypto is inseparable from its crudity. But the blunt characterizations and the emphatic emotional cues are also evidence of the director’s skill.
Numerous good things can be said about Apocalypto, the director's foray into the decaying Mayan civilization of the early 1500s, but every last one of them is overshadowed by Gibson's well-established penchant for depictions of stupendous amounts of violence.
The movie is so impressionistic, it obfuscates any sense of history. We expect at least a hint at the causes of the Mayan Empire's demise, but instead we get Mesoamerican Rambo.
A reasonably good effort here from Gibson, the film is set in Central American Mayan culture and offers some impressive visuals at times that can really transport you back to the films time. The film was enjoyable and entertaining to watch but it failed to fully grasp at an engaging story line set in this time period: it felt like Gibson was more interested in having a film showcase some aspects of Mayan culture rather than wrapping a full story line into it. The first section of the film seems to have a lack of focus, and the film also introduces certain elements into the film but refuses to continue with them. Once arriving at the Mayan city the film does focus more on one plot point, but it is not an exceedingly interesting one. The film also brought an odd mixture of realism and stylistically orientated scenes that felt odd but intriguing to watch. Also, well done for Gibson actually making the effort to not make the Mayans some how speak English. The acting is very hit and miss also, with some scenes feeling overly cheesy and others feeling very forced by the actors, yet it does capture the brutality and savagery of the time period. An enjoyable watch mainly for the sight of a fully realised Mayan culture put to screen but not for an engaging plot or acting. 6.5/10
Very good film by Mel Gibson. Good story, but even better action. I absolutely loved the fighting scenes and the chase scenes in particular. The last thirty minutes were so intense. A great movie despite the few historical inaccuracies. I really enjoyed it.
Netflix gave this a recommended 4 stars out of 5 so I thought I would watch it. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I have no idea how movie critics gave this pretty good reviews, while other great movies get **** ones. In case it didn't show up already, I've got some mild spoilers here. I've got two huge beefs with this movie, aside from everything else that is wrong with it. Firstly, half of the movie revolves around the main characters being shackled up and just walking around. About as exciting as it sounds. Secondly, the main theme behind the movie is to be unafraid in the face of danger and be courageous. This is all well and good, and the main character realizes this towards the end of the movie and is capable of doing some incredible things. That's great, and would work really well in most movies, but with the situations that the main character was already in, HE WOULD HAVE DIED ABOUT 100 times over earlier in the movie if he didn't have fear as a motivator. If he would've been courageous and stood his ground and fought, like the central theme implied, the movie would end 15 minutes in, 20 minutes in, take your pick. This really destroyed any point of the main theme coming together at the end for me. Aside from this, I was facepalming about once a minute during the last 30 minutes of the movie. Not to say that some of the stuff at that juncture of the movie wasn't well done, but there was so much wrong with it that I only kept watching to see how much more this movie would f*** up. I would not recommend this movie to anyone and have no idea how the hell it was ever justified to be made
I know now why the Mayans went extinct. They were nothing but a bunch of wild, bloodthirsty animals. Praise the Lord, or the Spanish, for bringing some civilization to that part of the world. The Arab world with their death cult and suicide bombings and their medieval superstitions is next, the last realm of barbarism.