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Review: 'Apocalypto' an action-packed experience
Thursday, December 7, 2006

"Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto tells of a time that is known to us only through ruins and artifacts, but its message could scarcely be more urgent. The first big-budget narrative film set during the waning days of the Mayan empire, it shows us a once-great people poised on the brink of collapse, and the reasons for their imminent demise feel all too familiar: rapid climate change, the depletion of the Earth’s natural resources, tribal warfare and man’s unrelenting power lust. The Mayan calendar, it is often noted, ends in the year A.D. 2012 — a fact some have taken as a prophecy of apocalypse. And at the rate we’re going as a global village, Gibson’s movie suggests, we may well prove them right.

When Gibson first announced his intention to make a movie about the Maya, it seemed a logical move for a filmmaker whose last two pictures, Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ, were both epic-scaled chronicles of life (and death) in ancient civilizations. But Apocalypto surprises us right from the start: Instead of focusing on the bustling centers of Maya culture — the great cities like Copan and Tikál, with their ornate palaces and pyramids — Gibson turns his attention to a tribe of hunter-gatherers in a small jungle village, and the early scenes have a downright quotidian sensibility. The tribesmen hunt wild boar and play practical jokes on one another. A nagging old woman prods her infertile son-in-law to produce her a grandchild. Then the village comes under siege from a warring sect — a merciless attack in which the tribal elder, called Flint Sky, sacrifices his own life to save that of his son, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood, a newcomer, like most of the key actors). And that’s just for starters. Having managed to hide his own young son and very pregnant wife (Dalia Hernandez) in a (relatively) safe place, Jaguar Paw is bound with the other survivors and marched off to a populous urban center — a spectacular feat of Cecil B. De Mille–inspired production design — where a high priest conducts human sacrifices to the angry god who has wrought famine and plague upon the land. Heads roll, literally, down the steps of the ritualistic altar, while a massive crowd cheers its approval.

By the time you are reading this, those who insist upon turning Mel Gibson into a divisive political issue on the order of abortion and handgun control will have alternately condemned Apocalypto as an orgy of sadism and celebrated it as a profoundly spiritual experience. For those of us who prefer to judge Gibson solely in terms of his art, the movie is a virtuosic piece of action cinema — particularly in its second half, as Jaguar Paw sets out to rescue his family, with his captors in hot pursuit. What’s more, it registers as a deeply personal vision on behalf of its maker. It is, simply put, the story of a man who is tried by fire, who must wrestle with demons both internal and external, and who finds, in family, a sense of salvation and even hope for the future."

Get the Story:
Apocalypto: The Passion of Mel (LA Weekly 12/7)

Relevant Links:
Apocalypto - http://apocalypto.movies.go.com