Mel Gibsons new flick. Looks Really interesting. Finally a movie about Meso-Americans
http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/apocalypto/large.html
http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/apocalypto/large.html
Justin24 said:Why can no one stand Mel Gibson. Just because he made a movie about Jesus?? At least he is not like Tom Cruise Jumping on couches, saying he is inlove!
"Apocalypto" surpasses "The Passion" in every way as a movie about pain, flagellation and wounding. The grotesqueries are almost numbing, and at some point they become laughable. But all the while, you're thinking, what's the point here? If "Apocalypto" was supposed to be about that transitional civilization, where is it? After two hours and several minutes of squirming and covering eyes, you start to think that "Apocalypto" exists just to show violence for itself. The point is lost.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,233518,00.html'Apocalypto' Is More 'Mad Max' Than Mayan
Friday, December 01, 2006
By Roger Friedman
E-MAIL STORY RESPOND TO EDITOR PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
AP
'Apocalypto' Is More 'Mad Max' Than Mayan
With the subtlety of several thousand flying mallets and arrows, here comes Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto," a two-hour plus torture-fest so violent that women and children will be headed to the doors faster than you can say "duck" when the film opens on Dec. 8.
Indeed, "Apocalypto" is the most violent movie Disney has ever released, with so much blood spurting out of orifices that even Martin Scorsese would blush.
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to see heads and hearts removed without anesthesia, then this is the movie for you. "Grey's Anatomy" it is not.
What it is, Gibson says, is the story of a civilization in transition, as the Mayans 500 years ago fought among themselves until visitors from Europe arrived by ship and spelled their doom.
(Story continues below)
Advertise Here
Advertisements
RelatedColumn Archive
'Apocalypto' Is More 'Mad Max' Than MayanJude Law Takes a Holiday From Sienna Miller ... AgainNicole Kidman Pregnant? Not LikelyMichael Jackson's Nanny Envisions Rwanda Fundraiser With Bill ClintonPhil Donahue Makes Anti-War FilmFull-page Fox411 Archive
Unfortunately, though, that part of the movie lasts maybe three minutes and takes place at the very end.
"Apocalypto" really is a video game, a sort of "Survivor" set in what would become the Mayan ruins as we know them today.
The action is often cartoonish, and the dialogue — which is all spoken in some ancient dialect with subtitles — is often preposterous.
In one scene, after what seems like the umpteenth bloody killing, one Mayan quips to another and the translation is, "He's f—-ed."
Gibson directs some of the film like "Braveheart" and some of it like "The Three Stooges." There is little poetry to his imagination, so the hard work has to be done by veteran cinematographer Dean Semler.
Semler saves Gibson over and over, but not by much and not totally. The problem is that, unlike in "The Passion of the Christ," there is no noble goal here. The Mayans are merely fighting among themselves. There's no indication that the triumph by one side over another will achieve anything.
Gibson's reliance on Semler is as odd as his choice of the cinematographer. The pair worked together on "We Were Soldiers." But also on Semler's résumé are Kevin Costner's great work, "Dances with Wolves," which was similar in theme to "Apocalypto," and Costner's monumental flop "Waterworld." Unfortunately, "Apocalypto" falls more on the side of the latter than the former.
Semler's production is so shiny and perfect that his Mayans sometimes seem like they're in a Coca-Cola commercial. Instead of the dusty world of "Dances with Wolves," we get the high sheen of Kodak prints.
Sometimes, the result of this is a vivid portrait of death. For example, a jaguar eats a man's head, and masticates. Half-dressed Mayans are shot through the head, heart and chest with arrows and knifed sometimes without notice and almost always in the most gruesome ways possible. Heads roll and bounce, for real, down the long stairs of the Kukulcan Pyramid, or what we now regard the centerpiece of the Mayan ruins.
Not all of "Apocalypto" is awful. Rudy Youngblood gives an athletic performance as Jaguar Paw, the hero who must save his pregnant wife and child from warring factions after he hides them in a deep pit.
Youngblood is quite literally the only person who emerges from the movie unscathed, somehow not dying or requiring medical attention after sustaining injuries that would kill most men.
He almost succeeds in making Jaguar Paw a completely sympathetic figure, too, by giving him nearly no dialogue. But then Gibson and screenwriter Farhad Safinia let him jump the shark (or the jaguar, in this case) and make hoary proclamations to the artfully designed sky. Even Youngblood seems like he's going to wince with embarrassment.
Of course, "Apocalypto" arrives with a lot of baggage. Gibson — an admitted alcoholic who denies being anti-Semitic despite evidence to the contrary — is kind of a marked man.
He refuses to answer a lot of questions, and he is confining his publicity for the movie to safe havens with Disney and ABC, which the studio owns (I dare Jay Leno to ask him about this summer's incidents when he appears on that show on opening night).
But more than those questions, there are new ones: What kind of man is so interested in making this kind of violent movie? What motivates him?
"Apocalypto" surpasses "The Passion" in every way as a movie about pain, flagellation and wounding. The grotesqueries are almost numbing, and at some point they become laughable.
But all the while, you're thinking, what's the point here? If "Apocalypto" was supposed to be about that transitional civilization, where is it? After two hours and several minutes of squirming and covering eyes, you start to think that "Apocalypto" exists just to show violence for itself. The point is lost.
LemonMacPhisto said:I wonder how the Jews killed the Mayans.
They start all of the wars you know..
aJustin24 said:Why can no one stand Mel Gibson. Just because he made a movie about Jesus??
deep said:I won't be seeing this
all the reviews are pretty bleak
just one more extreem snuff film from Mel
I think I may spend my money on Blood Diamond, instead.
greeneyedgirl said:I'm looking forward to seeing it next wk on my birthday.
I know alot about Mayan history, so I'm interested in seeing a bit of it come to life.
MrsSpringsteen said:
I wonder how the Jews killed the Mayans.
Justin24 said:It's Violent out of a scale 1-10 I would say a 6. It's not as bad as the reviews put it out to be.