Apocalypto

When I threw on Apocalytpo I really had no idea what I was in for. All I remember reading from anything surrounding the film was that it was an exciting action movie which led me to think I was in for great things. An action movie that centered around the Mayan civilization, what could be cooler than that?!

As an aside, I'll state right now that I actually like Mel Gibson. Every time Braveheart is on TV I without fail end up leaving it on and watching it till the end. I've always thought he was an incredibly entertaining actor as well, between the Lethal Weapon series and films like Payback and The Patriot he always keeps me entertained. I have indeed seen The Passion of the Christ and frankly I didn't care for it because I just found it to be a mediocre, boring film. I've never really paid any attention to his outspoken, real life personality because frankly I find most celebrities are often completely misinformed or so biased about their topics it's funny and also have a habit of picking the most worthless causes possible to speak about. And now on with the review.

After finishing the film, the first thing I did was go online and read other reviews to see if I had missed anything involving the film and to get a general feel of other people's feelings towards the film. Two things that were consistent across all reviews and stuck out quite clearly:
1. The costumes, soundtrack, and acting in this film were great.
2. It's very polarizing, or rather, people either loved it or found it boring for the most part, there's very little middle ground.
I happened to fall into the group of people that found this movie incredibly boring. The film begins by setting up Jaguar Paw's (Rudy Younblood) family, friends, and village for 20 minutes. After that 20 minutes which gives just enough time to give the audience an idea of the village life but not nearly enough time to make the audience care or connect with any of the characters, they are attacked by a band of warriors that ends in a bloody mess. From there, the audience watches an hour long march (that could've easily been done in 5 minutes) to a massive Mayan temple. Here, where Mel could've given the audience some interesting insight into the little bit we know of the civilization and way of life, he instead skips to a long drawn out scene of human sacrifice which isn't all that thrilling or entertaining. Jaguar Paw escapes through a series of absurd and overt "deus ex machina" moments and eventually the film ends with 45 minutes of a small group of men chasing Jaguar Paw with more "deus ex machina" garbage. So to reiterate, the film is broken down into the attack on the village, an all-to-long death march to a Mayan temple, and an all-to-long chase scene.

One of the major criticisms I've found amongst reviewers is that in Gibson's films the gore is excessive. What I find amusing is that the gore is supposed to add to the realism, however, it often comes off looking very cartoonish and made me laugh. The gore in Braveheart I found to be necessary and that film involved much more blood than this one, so I had no problem with it. I actually, at points, found it amazing that more blood and gore were not used, as I imagine when you cut open someone's stomach using a knife made of rock and rip out their heart there would be plenty of blood. Another criticism is that the facts involving Mayan civilization were virtually absent, and this is very apparent to anyone that has ever done any sort of research or reading regarding the civilization. While I love the civilization and was fairly upset at how it was portrayed initially, eventually I got over it by reminding myself this is a film and a work of fiction and not a documentary. What was silly to me, however, was that Gibson uses the native language (such as he did in TPotC) to ensure realism, however, any research done on the civilization must've been thrown out the window. Finally, I don't understand what was "visually stunning" about this film as often the shots looked pretty bland or poorly presented as though it was someone's directorial debut.

One of the most notable things I found about this film, was that for an epic, it lacked any sort of grandiosity. There were no memorable speeches (heck there was very little dialogue through the entire film), almost no memorable, breathtaking shots, and no hero that you actually cared about if he lived or died. It actually took me several minutes to figure out who the hero in the film was, until finally Gibson decided to add in the little plot of Jaguar Paw's pregnant wife and child. Oh yes, during the attack on the village, Jaguar Paw hides them in a well (whom we revisit several times through out the film only to see them sitting around not doing much, think the queen subplot in 300), which is when I finally figured out who the hero was and from then on was bored because I knew he wasn't going to die anytime soon. The complete disconnect between myself and any of the characters ever presented on screen was by far the most off-putting thing about this movie for me. I could not engage or empathize with any of the situations as the whole time I just found myself bored because I had absolutely no emotional attachment to any of the characters. Finally, the other problem I had with the film was that the action scenes were incredibly slow and flat out boring. Gibson never gives you a sense that the pack of warriors are closing in on Jaguar Paw in the last chase scene, never really presents any sort of suspense at any point during the chase, spends far too much time just focusing on one person running, and the fighting is virtually non-existant except for a few moments that look like something straight out of MacGyver.

The only saving grace of this film were the completely absurd, arbitrary, and sudden explosive acts of violence that, as I stated earlier, actually didn't involve all that much gore. For a film that has this listing on IMDb "Plot Keywords: Stabbed In The Chest / Blow Pipe / Shot Through The Mouth / Hunter / Fall From Height" I could not have fathomed how you could make the action uninteresting, but Gibson does it. I "get" the ideas that people are violent and I understand the (laughably horrendous) ending, I just found this movie to be poop.