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The Last of the Mohicans Meets The Running Man
By bukkhead | June 13, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘APOCALYPTO’
Written by Mel Gibson and Farhad Safinia
Directed by Mel Gibson
Rated R
139 mins.
3 stars
I’m half tempted to tell you the ending of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, but I really don’t have to, since you will probably figure it out for yourself. Mel provides the tried-and-true ancient civilization clichés, (complete with a deus ex machina solar eclipse saving the day) like Cliff’s Notes for those who don’t want to bother reading actually anthropology texts. What will cinch it for the attentive film-buff is remembering that this is a Mel Gibson movie, with lots of nice Christian subtexts, and everything’s going to hinge on father-son issues. And blood.
Apocalypto starts with a quote: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from Within.” This from Will Durant. And then we get a chase scene, a group of aboriginal Mayans hunting a tapir. But what of the quote? Is this Mel’s way of telling us it was the Mayans’ own undoing that got them conquered by the Spaniards? Is
this his way of saying hey, those conquistadors weren’t bloodthirsty, they were just good Christian men spreading the word to a civilization already on the brink of self-destruction? Maybe. I tend to read too much into these things. But don’t worry, this movie is 99% Mayan-on-Mayan action, so the quote is just a reminder that “everything you see here, eventually, will just be tourist stops for vacationers.”
Mel took a few pages from the Peter Jackson school of Using Breathtaking Landscapes to Make a Bloody War Move Classy: lots of nice shots of rain forests at dawn, at dusk, replete with fog and moonlight to show the passing of time. And so lush! So many scenes of natives running through the dense foliage. This is man at one with nature. This is man at one with chucking spears at other men. This is man at one with getting revenge for a murdered father and or son (take your pick).
Because that’s what these Mel epics boil down to. A father loves his son, a son loves his father, one of them is put in danger or killed and the other one risks a bloody fate to protect or avenge him. Lots of Mel movies have the father/son thing going: The Patriot, Ransom, Braveheart, Hamlet, The Passion… And like those, Apocalypto turns this energy into mile after mile of chase scenes, slow-motion fight scenes, and blood, and blood, and blood. But it’s not gory, because there’s authentic period instruments and disembodied choruses in the background. It’s epic.
If you’re able to forget about the anachronism, the scientific fallacies, the simplistic plot and the worn-out themes, Apocalypto does have enough to keep you engaged. The person in charge of make-up and wardrobe should be given an Academy Award. The natives are decorated with tattoos, scarification, and clothing that immediately establishes their roles in either the aboriginal life or the civilized Mayan city. Frankly, it was stunning, and the raw beauty of it more than makes up for the lack of historical consistency. And the blood.
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