Directed by
Mel Gibson
Cast:
Rudy Youngblood … Jaguar Paw
Dalia Hernández … Seven
Jonathan Brewer … Blunted
Morris Birdyellowhead … Flint Sky
Carlos Emilio Báez … Turtles Run
Amilcar RamÃrez … Curl Nose
Israel Contreras … Smoke Frog
Israel RÃos … Cocoa Leaf
MarÃa Isabel DÃaz … Mother in Law
Espiridion Acosta Cache … Old Story Teller
Mayra Serbulo … Young Woman
Even before his infamous tirade last fall, Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto looked to be a risky venture. The movie’s trailer looked absolutely insane, with vivid depictions of Mayan culture, a jaguar, and a super creepy child that spoke in an ancient dialect. While the film’s $40 million budget wasn’t anything compared to some of its box office competitors, the film was still in a dead language and had to attract audiences who would go in mostly on Mel Gibson’s clout as a filmmaker, and not on its subject matter. You would have thought with Gibson’s incident, the film surely would have been doomed as the Mayans themselves, but surprisingly the movie did a modest profit.
Turns out, no matter what questions there may be about Mel Gibson’s character, the man is a fine director. Apocalypto is old-fashioned, epic film making, with a simple, yet moving story, wonderful set pieces, a dash of humor, and tons of brutal action. Through the film’s attention to detail you can feel Gibson’s enthusiasm for this project, as this world he’s resurrected feels as real as any you’ve ever seen on screen before.
What’s surprising is just how simple the story really is. The plot revolves around Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a simple hunter who lives in a peaceful village during the turbulent time period that this film is set. Gibson does a terrific job of displaying the serenity of the village and how its tries to exist within nature. The depiction of these characters and their life is quite meticulous, giving us at least a small idea of who these people are, making their journeys and misfortunes all the more dramatic and heartfelt.
The film is even more amazing considering that Gibson did not cast many professional actors for the movie. Some people in the film had never even seen a movie before, making what the director was able to accomplish quite startling. These performers are helped immensely by the fact that Gibson and Co-Producer Farhad Safinia developed the film’s script by keeping their dialogue very straightforward, staying away from the stuffy stereotypes depicted of natives in many Hollywood movies. This gives the characters a familiar humanity, and making it easy to identify with them, even if they wear loincloths and hunt wild boar with spears.
The crux of the movie is this village and how important this life is to Jaguar Paw. The most important theme of the picture is the raping of paradise by the Mayan people, who destroy this peaceful village and enslave its people. The film doesn’t shy away from horrific violence through this pillaging, and the filmmakers ratchet up the tension as our captive heroes must make their long journey to the decadent city of the Mayans. Then we’re given the epic flourishes we expected from the director of Braveheart and Passion of the Christ
This section is the most striking, as Gibson shows us visually how the civilization could have possibly imploded. The gluttonous waste of humanity in the city is horrifying, as is the insanity of the needless expense of the people’s resources. We’re also hit with incredible architecture, as the film’s crew built incredible structures that would have felt right at home in a Cecil B. DeMille picture, reminding us of the incredible sights of The Ten Commandments and other films of its ilk. The buildings are also representative of this same excess, shown in contrast to the simple villagers we’ve grown to know earlier in the picture.
Smartly, Gibson and his team really only gives us a glance at the Mayan civilization in Apocalypto. We’re instead focused on Jaguar Paw and his journey, and when he finally makes a break for home, we’re engrossed in the film till its incredible conclusion. To be honest, the film’s second half has more in common First Blood than it does with any Biblical epic.
Playing out like a brutally violent Saturday Morning Serial, Apocalypto serves up waterfalls, bees, quicksand and the most awesome attack by an actual jaguar ever filmed. Gibson pulls out all of his visual tricks, aided by the work of editors Kevin Stitt and John Wright, who put together incredible fights and other chase sequences, also reminding us of the struggling family that Jaguar Paw is trying to get home to. We’re nearly out of breath ourselves as the chase comes to its terrific conclusion.
Serving up more visceral excitement than any picture to come out this Summer, Apocalypto is a master class in action film making that knows that you don’t need huge CGI sequences to excite your audiences. While the film may not really have too many deep discussions within its two hours, it makes for a very exciting escapist cinema. Gibson as a person may be in doubt, his skill as a film maker is not.
The Video
The movie’s print on this disc is fantastic, as the movie’s digital photography looks appropriately majestic in the big moments and terribly gritty when the blood is flying. Colors are bright and the image is always flush with detail. The film is presented in Anamorphic Widescreen with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1.
The Audio
The Audio track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is also quite good. The soundtrack or action never over whelms the dialogue, keeping a nice balance throughout.
Audio Commentary by Director Mel Gibson and co-writer Farhad Safinia – This is a pretty informative commentary track with Gibson being surprisingly laid back throughout, dropping little tidbits about the production, but not really delving deeply into the film’s concepts and discussions. Both men seem to really know their Mayan history though and the track is never silent for too long. There’s an interesting portion of the track where the main characters are going through a temple before a sacrifice, and Gibson talks about a mural on the wall, which was apparently a reproduction of a piece that had recently been found and replaced a mural that had already been painted for the movie. What I find interesting is it in this painting that the men that are to be sacrificed are painted blue, which becomes an important image in the movie, and if this was a last minute replacement, were the men going to be blue before that? I wish the track actually would have covered this, but it doesn’t.
Becoming Mayan: Making Apocalypto – This is a 25-minute making-of and for the most part is pretty informative. I especially like the section in which they talk about the construction of the city square, in which they actually built the gigantic pyramid structure as well as other buildings. With so many structures being done in CGI these days, its incredible to see a building actually built old-school like this one, and I think typifies Gibson’s dedication to this movie.
Deleted Scene with Optional Commentary by Director Mel Gibson and Co-Writer Farhad Safinia – This scene is pretty short, but also shows how meticulous the detail in this movie is, as a deer crosses the path of the prisoners that are being lead into the city. The deer was taught to limp and its hair had been frayed to make it look like it had gone through a horrible ordeal, making the trip for these prisoners even more ominous.
The Inside Pulse
Forget any of the hype. Apocalypto is old-fashioned epic movie-making with tons of action and suspense. The disc is a bit light, but the film more than makes up the distance, making this a worthy purchase for lovers of good action cinema.
