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During the decline of the Mayan civilization, a young man and his family are separated after a violent tribe brutally invades their village taking all the men and women captive. The young man manages to conceal his family from the invaders, only to find himself captured and brought to a more advanced society where he learns that his fate and the fate of his tribe will end tragically. His only goal is to make a desperate attempt to escape and to get back to his family. A LOT of blood, cool ancient rituals and brutal battles ensue!
Despite his current negative status in Hollywood, this Mel Gibson guy isn't a bad filmmaker. APOCALYPTO was an unexpected surprise. I had no idea what I was getting into and based on the trailers, the movie looked more like THE NEW WORLD (which sucked) and something out of a National Geographic special. But it wasn't! Instead, we got a little of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, mixed in with a bit of DANCES WITH WOLVES and a dash of FIRST BLOOD to finish it off and…BOOM! We have a great film here folks! Even the subtitles didn't bother me...in fact, they enhanced the movie even more (the entire film is subtitled as the characters all speak in ancient Mayan).
All the characters were great and engaging. Every character was so interesting by the way they spoke to each other and wore their ornaments, hair, make-up and weapons. You could probably make individual movies with each of these characters. Just one look at them and you can see their story. The fact that Gibson didn’t use any recognizable actors made the film that much better as it certainly didn't need any star power to push this film and it made the film more authentic.
Mel Gibson is a great storyteller. I was glued to the screen the whole time and there was never a dull moment. I’m assuming Gibson did his homework for the details of the Mayan Civilization to enhance the storyline's authenticity, as my knowledge for Mayan history is pretty limited. He managed to re-create this amazing civilization that was mesmerizing and brutal. It felt like I was learning a piece of history first hand, which made the movie that much more interesting. Obviously, I can't take everything I saw on face value as I'm pretty confident there was a bit of Hollywood thrown in there, not to mention that I’m sure there will be a whole bunch of historians disagreeing with the content of the film, but even if there were discrepancies, I didn't see them and I wouldn’t care if there were any, anyway!
If I had to state anything negative about this film -- and I don’t even feel that I should be saying that this is a negative point -- it would be the fact that the young women in the film were too hot looking! I'm sure there were hot Mayans back then, but these chicks were way too hot (and I’m talking natural beauty) to be believable. Like I said, it’s a negative...but not really.
Well...Gibson is now officially on a roll when it comes to making great films. This is an amazing motion picture that’s entertaining and mesmerizing and please don't let the subtitles turn you off. In this case, they really do make the movie better! By the way, it is a very graphic film, and I’m talking animal entrails, human skull crushings and be-headings where the peeps are actually aware of their own decapitation after the fact!! Very disturbing and mind-blowing stuff! So if that kind of content turns you off, maybe sit this one out. But despite the graphicness, the film does deliver!
-- by Tim
Goernert
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