Apocalypto

I liked the character development in the beginning, and I liked the intensity of the chase. I didn't like the one dimensional nature of the bad guys, and I didn't like the ending. You?

Gibson has become since "Braveheart," a muse of the eccentric. The film has a slick, polished look and there's little doubt in the sincerity of his intent, be it hypocritical or not. He's just too preoccupied with blood and violence and tries to disguise it in artsy visual rhetoric. I hear an inner voice coming from his product, "Look at me, I'm as clueless as a pimp at a revival meeting."

He does know how to hire (entice with cash) some really talented film artists to make an impressive cinematic extravaganza.

That was actually a train of thought that interrupted me during the movie.
Which I think is the sign of a sick movie. Or director.. how ever you want to put it.

I was wondering, about the time that he got into the forrest and he was standing at the end of the waterfall yelling at the men, if Mel Gibson ever offered any psychological counseling for the actors.
Everything was about death and destruction. There seemed to be no other piece to the plot.

Well, I guess if you count his wife in the hole, you could call it a love story.

I have to say that I did like the movie though.

The costumes, make up, even the gore.. was all very impressive.

With what little I know of Mayan history, I do know that it has been as proven as possible that they did in fact slaughter men/women. Throwing their bodys down a large 'slide'.
Of course, since no one alive was there when they did this, we have no real clue as to why this practice was done.

What saddened me was that Mel seemed to grab on to this ONE thing about the Mayans and nothing else.
The entire movie revolved around the Mayans being murderous, hateful , angry people.
I don't think that was fair.
This happens to too many lost societies as it is.

I mean, most people still think the Native Americans were dumb nomads thanks to some cinema works.
But, Im heading off topic.

Yes. I enjoyed the move.
Yes, I too think Mel gets too much enjoyment and satisfaction out of murder, rape and human terror
Yes, I LOVED how beautiful the move was.
And yes, the ending made no sense to me either. It just seemed like he ran out of ways to slaughter someone, so he set his main character free.

I think the plot was actually believable ( aside from the impression it leaves one of Mayans ) and it did leave me clutching my pants leg in tension.
But I could not help but come away with the thoughts of Mel being kinda sick in the head..

So my thoughts are more of a double edged sword.
Truly loved it
Truly questioned it.

I guess here is a good of place as any to admit that I am thinking of watching Passion of Christ.. The passion of christ? Christ of passion?

What ever the name of that movie is...

I will probably walk away from THAT one feeling the same as I did about this one, but I'm a self admitted hypocrite and will probably enjoy it no matter if people are eating raw animal balls or pulling each others hearts out of their chests...

I liked Apocalypto. But the character developement was mediocre. Just plain White and Black.

Viewers like me get confused about what the film ultimately has to say.

I'm not saying it wasn't satisfying as an action movie but it didn't have any earth-shaking revelations regarding the Mayans and the gore was over the line into the gratuitous, satisfying some kind of freaky, "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" mentality. Documentaries on PBS and Discovery about the Mayan's perchance for bloody sacrifice and doing away with their neighboring cities or enslaving them is nothing new. The theories are much more in favor of their running out of food and simply leaving the jungled cities, not warfare where they killed each other off.

On a side note, the "special effects" regarding the Panther were only "special" in a short-schoolbus sort of way...

whaaaaa ?

You didn't like watching them beat a stuffed toy?
I thought it was brutal the way they treated that poor toy. Buzz and Woody would be appalled !

I really liked it, a thrill per minute type film really. I also love forests and the shots you see zooming through them, great stuff. I don't consider myself to be any more knowledgeable regarding Mayan's of course but that's a given and I never watched it for that reason anyway. Who would?

As for The Passion of the Christ, the brutal scene that sticks in my memory is of Christ getting flogged by the most over the top animal like guards you're likely to see for a while on the big screen. As far as I'm aware it far exceeds the amount of punishment anyone can take without dying. No surprises there then! Despite the fact that by the end of it there's barely an inch on the lad's body that hasn't been lacerated to shreds, it's more the romantic, idealistic symbol the main character represents against the backdrop of his treatment that makes the film harsh, not so much the blood or anything. Like a light that is slowly being extinguished over the course of 2 hours amidst hatred and fear from all angles. Glad I watched this as well though.

Haven't seen it but read reviews (story of my life). I think I'd be pissed if I were mayan. (I've been to Tikal, have had a mayan friend earlier, not to speak for him.) On some other thread about this, I think I gave a link for an article refuting this and that (too bad I've no memory left).

ehh.. I have to agree there.
You don't go to a large screen to learn your history unless it is stamped by PBS, National Geographic and the like ( not to say there are not films out there that do represent as accurate as they can , pieces of history.. It is just not the best place to go seeking it.)

BUT-
my husband and I were talking about this movie on the way home..

Mind you, we do not own a tv that is hooked up to any public access tv, or cable. Our tv is for movies only. So we remain in the dark about movie advertisements and the " next big thing' because we don't have 'tv'.

But he had done some research and peeking around at trailers for this movie and his opinion was that it was presented in a way that might make one think this is possibly ' accurate and a way the Mayans might have died'

Of course, that opinion is left up to each person who reads it.. But I can see where he is coming from.
As, I walked away from the movie with that thought in my head.


I guess, i can refer to 300 for a great example.

You don't watch a movie like 300 and expect it to reflect history.
yet, an overwhelming amount of people complained about just that. That it was not 'historical' ( )


Ehh.. Long winded answer , but I agree with ya..

Well, there's no chance I'd see the movie, not my type of movie in the first place, and then there's my distaste for Gibson in the way too.
I like the way Lightwizard succinctly tells his point of view, giving positives as well as negs. Not that the rest of you didn't. But his take made me stop in admiration.


On how historical Gibson thinks his movies are, I gather that is controversial, at least re Passion of Christ, or Crushing of Priests, whatever.

I'm probably just a cynic, I don't expect to learn much most of the time maybe. I very rarely see a film or read a book that I haven't already read a review or two on though so I always gauge opinions on stuff like that and Gibson's sensationalism etc was well known to me. I would only complain about a lack of sincerity regarding a film and it's historical accuracy, but I guess that itself is often a grey area. I don't know really, unless I feel a lot of confidence in the source of information, maybe I just allow it to go over my head, learning, if you like, with a very conscious & specific effort rather than just taking everything that is placed in front of me as data to be used to form opinions. Maybe too many people are looking to "learn" and people have every right to complain about 300 for example, given what they think people will do with the "opinions" (aka BS if the film lacks credibility) they gather from watching it. If that makes sense.

I thought it was a neat movie; I especially liked the happy ending where the white men came to put an end to the perverted non-civilization depicted in the middle part of the movie.

I can sort of picture it, one of them saying to another something like "Well, Fernando, we can feel pretty good about this one, there's literally NOTHING we could do to this place which wouldn't improve it."

In that sense it was like "TITANIC" we all knew the ship ws gonna sink . So too, in this movie, the ficus on the brutality of the Maya against the "mosquitos" was legend, then finall, as our hero gets freed as his captors run down to the beach , we all know that hes merely exchanging one kind of slavery for another. I especuialy like the way the ending didnt interfere with the movie except as metaphor for brutality in a different suit.

You guys are too highbrow, come down to my childlike level and youll enjoy things more.

Some people might have been disappointed that they left out the scene where the city dwellers cooked the sacrafice victims and ate them; at that point in the movie however Gibson had to have figured he was running out of time for the action scenes.

I wonder if Gibson might tackle the myth that the Spaniards under Pizarro
conquered the Incas. Pizarro easily enlisted the services of the Peruvian tribes who hated the Incas and without them would never have been able to topple the Incan Empire. It was basically taking advantage of an ongoing civil war. Now why can't the US accomplish that? Pizarro was not the smartest log in the woodpile either.

When you think about it.... IF Gibson's portrayal of the Mayan city is realistic, then the best analogy you could make is that what you were seeing is what the United States might look like 500 years after the WWF took over the government...

World Wildlife Federation? You mean pandas are going to take over our government? Or World Wrestling Federation, which elected to change their acronym to WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment (closer to the truth).