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All Movie Info
Starring:
Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Jonathan Brewer, Morris Birdyellowhead, Carlos Emilio Baez, Ramirez Amilcar, Israel Contreras, Israel Rios, María Isabel Díaz, Espiridion Acosta Cache, Iazua Larios
Directed By:
Mel Gibson
Written By:
Mel Gibson, Farhad Safinia
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Apocalypto (2006)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
July 3rd, 2007
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What is it that causes great civilizations to collapse? One can perhaps draw attention to a combination of internal and external factors, conquest from the outside, or deterioration from within. Apocalypto offers no explicit reasons for the fall of the Mayan empire, but it simply builds an engaging and wonderfully realized story around this event. Jaguar Paw (Youngblood) is a young man whose village is ransacked, burned, and plundered by Mayan warriors, who have come to take him and other captives back to their capital, where they intend to sacrifice them, in hopes that this will appease the gods and bring fortune upon them. Before he gets carted off, Jaguar Paw hides his pregnant wife and son, and promises to come back for them. The capital city, we see, is one of awesome opulence, towering temples and ornately dressed denizens, especially the priests and royalty, who preside over the ritual that consumes the lives of several of Jaguar Paw's friends. He gets lucky and is spared, but his freedom is not assured. He must survive a game of sorts, where he has spears and other objects thrown at him as he runs towards a field, which then leads into a forest, and beyond that lies his home and his family. To get back there, he endures one of the longest, most well-crafted and exciting chase sequences ever filmed.
He is pursued by ruthless hunters, including the sadistic Snake Ink, who enjoys torturing and killing helpless individuals. Jaguar Paw is a strong-willed and resourceful protagonist, someone we can cheer for, as he is driven by both instinct and a desire to be reunited with his family, obviously defying the odds, physically scarred, but able to outsmart his opponents at nearly every turn. Gibson, as he did in the Passion, focuses on authenticity, using the native language, and choosing his settings wisely. Never do we feel like we are staring at some modern environment, it wholly absorbs us into the jungles of Central America five centuries ago.
Terrific scenery and cinematography accompanied by superlative music. The film is unsparing in its violence, as hearts are ripped out of chests and heads are tossed down stairs. Visceral and grisly to say the least, but undoubtedly effective, and one cannot deny that such barbarism was a crucial part of the society in question. The ending has Europeans (presumably the Spanish) arriving by boat, as Jaguar Paw chooses to retreat into the woods rather the greet the new visitors. Whether the movie provides a solidly accurate portrait of this amazing old culture can be left to historians, but there is little I could say to fault it. It seems so believably real. Gibson, whatever his personal flaws (this movie was released after his anti-semitic tirade, for which he was rightly condemned), he is a filmmaker of phenomenal talent. Apocalypto illustrates that quite well.
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