Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (Theatrical Film Review)

 

Stars: Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Jonathan Brewer, Raoul Trujillo, Gerardo Taracena

Director: Mel Gibson

Critic's rating: 5 out of 10

 

Review by Chuck O'Leary

 

As one who loved Braveheart and thought The Passion of the Christ was one of the most powerful films ever made, I approached Mel Gibson's Apocalypto with extremely high expectations.

 

In my view, Gibson is the biggest rebel in Hollywood, and I truly admire his maverick streak.  Furthermore, the fact that the man had the cojones to risk his superstardom to make a Biblically accurate, subtitled film in Aramaic about the most sacred event in all of Christianity (the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) while being part of an industry where it's become hip to mock and debase Christianity, forever puts Gibson on my list of good people.

 

It also didn't hurt that The Passion of the Christ turned out to be a deeply moving masterpiece, and Gibson managed to infuriate some of the most annoying ideologues within the far-left media and Hollywood while realizing his vision.

 

But when a filmmaker creates an all-time great such as The Passion of the Christ, it's only natural to see some degree of a decline with their next film.  Apocalypto is definitely a comedown from The Passion, however, I still respect Gibson for having the guts to once again go totally against the grain, even though he's finally fallen short of his ambitions.

 

After his hugely successful, though very controversial, triumph with The Passion one would have expected Gibson to retreat back to safer territory for his next project, and put his handsome face front and center as a lethal action hero or a charming romantic lead.  But what does Gibson do? He decides to remain behind the camera to co-write, co-produce and direct another subtitled foreign-language period epic full of graphic violence and featuring a cast of unknowns -- this one doesn't even have any semi well-known performers as The Passion did with Jim Caviezel and Monica Bellucci.

 

That said, Apocalypto doesn't quite work because it lacks the intensity of feeling that Gibson brought to Braveheart and The Passion.  It has compelling moments, but it never involves us on an emotional level the way those films did.

 

Set centuries ago in a time and place that's never specifically mentioned, but what's apparently the 15th Century in what's now Mexico or Central America, Gibson's latest is a brutal survival tale set among the Mayans.  We're introduced to one seemingly content village of Mayans that's viciously attacked early in the film by another renegade tribe.  After much killing, raping and pillaging, the surviving adult Mayans from the peaceful tribe are taken hostage by the malevolent tribe, tied to pieces of bamboo and force marched across the jungle.

 

After lots of unpleasant torture and agony, the good Mayans are brought to the home of the bad Mayans (called the Holcane Warriors), whose city is centered around a pyramid-type structure with many steps leading up to a platform where a high priest makes human sacrifices to the gods by pulling out hearts, chopping off heads and throwing the headless bodies down the steps --with all the blood and body parts, fans of today's goriest splatter flicks may very well come to embrace Apocalypto as their favorite historical epic.

 

In the middle of the human sacrifice ceremony, an eclipse occurs, which is interpreted by the high priest as a sign the gods have had their fill of blood.  The remaining male members of the good tribe are then taken to another area of the Holcane camp where they're forced to participate in a sadistic game that gives them a slim chance of survival; They'll have to run several yards through an empty dusty field while the Holcane warriors shoot arrows and throw spears at them.  If they manage to make it across the field without being impaled to death, they can attempt to run across a cornfield that leads to the jungle, representing possible freedom.

 

One of the good Mayans, named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), manages to make it across the field despite being wounded.  Jaguar Paw is then pursued through the jungle by a small group of ferociously determined Holcane warriors.  It is here, about two-thirds of the way into the movie, where Apocalypto finally comes to life and reveals itself to be a variation of The Most Dangerous Game (1932).  As Jaguar Paw is chased across the jungle, the hunters become the hunted, while Jaguar Paw's pregnant wife and little boy hide at the bottom of a pit in the ground inside their home village.

 

Once the film turns into a man-hunting-man-for-sport adventure in its final third, it becomes very exciting.  Unfortunately, it takes way too long to reach this point.  Had Gibson followed the cue of other less self-important variations of The Most Dangerous Game, such as The Naked Prey, Surviving the Game and Hard Target, and cut to the chase more quickly, Apocalypto would have been a far more satisfying experience.  Instead the first two-thirds are barely more interesting than one of those dry ancient civilizations classes in high school.  Instead of the gripping, rip-roaring adventure it becomes in the final act, the first two acts play more like Terrence Malick's deliberately-paced The New World on steroids.

 

Apocalypto begins with the quote, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."  Whatever Gibson exactly meant here metaphorically is known probably only to him, but I took the film as a cautionary tale of what could occur if America continues to be so divided from within (left vs. right) while the country is at war with an outside enemy (the Islamo-Fascists) intent on converting or destroying us all.

 

Apocalypto is the latest major movie to be shot (by cinematographer Dean Semler) on digital High-Definition video, which never looks as good as regular film.  Nevertheless, this is one of the better looking examples of HD to date with the grainy look associated with this format only noticeable a few times.  Gibson and Semler smartly decided to shoot in the flat 1.85:1 aspect ratio as opposed to the wider 2.35:1 scope format in which recent films like Superman Returns and Miami Vice were shot in HD, and looked awful.  Gibson's latest serves as more evidence that 1.85:1 appears to be as wide as you should go when shooting on HD.

 

Gibson is a talented filmmaker and one of today's most interesting stars, but if wants to continue to be taken seriously, he should get away from all this excessive bloodletting for a while.