Apocalypto review

The story of the Mayan civilization is a fascinating one. It's not the one explored in Apocalypto. Instead director Mel Gibson has made to what all intents and purposes is a conventional action adventure, a brutally violent one at that, which just happens to involve Mayan characters and be set in the jungles of Central America. There are plenty of chase sequences, though more the running variety than involving cars since they wouldn't be invented for another 400 years. The parallels to the formulaic structure of a contemporary action film are such that despite its historical setting, Apocalypto never feels anything other than thoroughly modern, replete with dubious CGI effects.

Much has been written about Gibson's upbringing and his father's political persuasions, but whatever transpired, somewhere along the way Mel developed a thirst for blood. It was evident in Braveheart, indulged ever further in The Passion Of The Christ and taken yet further still with Apocalypto, which, from the opening scenes of a tapir being impaled on wooden spikes, is unrelentingly and intensely gory. Certainly not for the squeamish, I found myself viewing much of the film through shielding fingers.

In the way that Gibson bravely filmed The Passion Of The Christ in the native tongue of Aramaic, he has once again gone for authenticity over compromise and filmed Apocalypto in the indigenous language of the Mayans. He has also employed a cast comprised entirely of Mesoamericans, many of who have never acted before but all of whom have extraordinary faces, the likes of which have rarely been seen on screen before. This quest for verisimilitude is admirable, though somewhat undermined when at one point someone is bitten by a poisonous snake, prompting a response from a friend that in the sub-titles translated to "He's fucked." I am not a linguistic historian, but I confess to being surprised that Mayans resorted to using the F word.

The adventure centers on Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), whose village is attacked by Holcane warriors led by the imposing Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo). Jaguar Paw is captured, along with those men who weren't murdered, but not before he's able to hide his pregnant wife and young son in a deep hole with the promise of his return. After watching his father killed by the sadistic Snake Ink (Rodolfo Palacio), Jaguar Paw and the other men are led on a tortuous journey through the jungle to a vast city where the rulers indulge in human sacrifices to appease the gods in the hope prosperity will return to their failing civilization.

The impressive sets and sheer scale of the city scenes conjure thoughts of Cecil B. DeMille's great epics. The original setting for Apocalypto is its strongest feature with its strikingly tattooed, pierced and adorned populous. The glimpse it gives you into Mayan culture is fascinating, but too superficial. You want Jaguar Paw to stop running so we could learn more about his world, but then if he did, he might not get back in time to save his family which is really what it was all about anyway.

Kevin Murphy