Review: Mel Gibson's Apocalypto

A rollicking action flick that'll leave you spinning, but not contemplating.

Apocalypto is not a complex movie. It's a simply plotted action flick, being mostly one long, but excellent, chase scene.

This is somewhat of a disappointment given it’s the only film made about the potentially fascinating Mayan culture, or any other ancient civilisation of the Americas for that matter, pretty much ever.

While the first half does bring you into the almost interesting daily life of a tribe of forest-dwelling Mayans, it’s basic stuff and nothing we haven’t seen already in the likes of The Mission, or George of the Jungle.

Generic forest tribe, a touch of folklore, some blokey hunting comraderie, good sweet people you can easily and instantly want to protect from outside harm.

This is where Mel connects the first dot of a tale that's clean and uncomplicated action/chase innocent good vs evil adventure.

Men hunt pigs, have big weekend feast, elders tell stories of the Gods, women dance, children laugh, all go to bed happy in their simple lives, which are about to go pear shaped.

Where Apocalypto does, at least temporarily, pick up a few culture points is the few moments we spend in a Mayan city. But depite the nice step-pyramids and glimpses of Mayan society, that’s all too short lived before it becomes a chase movie, which is the non-stop second half of this 2 hour and 18 minute movie.

Set in the period of Mayan decline in the 15th century, just prior to the arrival of the Conquistadors, the civilisation is eating itself up. It’s desperate times, with starving and borderline revolting peasants at their lowest ebb.

But the film doesn’t dig into the root causes of the Mayan decline, of which there are numerous theories, being mostly either ecological, or social collapse, but still all fascinating material to explore.

We do get a few shots of dried up corn fields as a bit of a clue, but there's a movie in itself in this history. I was hoping this would be it. It's not, sadly, but in all fairness to Apocalypto, as it turn out Mel was going somewhere else entirely with this setting.

It instead uses the once great, but now bleak and brutal, civilisation as a backdrop as a hardcore setting for hardcore action.

The simple-as-ABC plot has a group of ‘happy with their hunter gatherer lives’ villagers dragged off in a flash of violence to be sacrificed to the Gods, as was the way of the times.

After a bit of character creation (honest and idealistic hero guy, old wise guy patriarch, sweet pretty pregnant wife, comic tragic clown guy) the henchmen from a local Mayan city storm in while everyone's asleep and rope up the menfolk, leave behind the kids and our hero’s wife. Off to the sacrificial alter for you, my lovlies, lest the corn wilt!

Herein our hero is driven to escape and do whatever it takes and get back to his man-less women and children. Particularly his wife and child, who cop a plot twist that's 100% Silence of the Lambs, being far from the only classic Apocalypto 'pays tribute to'.

Hauled off to a certain, grisly and pointless sacrificial death (as we enlightened modern folk are impressed to acknowledge as an ever present feeling the film imparts), bloody savages. They're led off in a roped convoy through an overly extended scene through the forest, that may or may not be influenced by the first episode of Roots, but in any case, highy reminiscent of it, including a redux of the the gut wrenching scene where a string of prisoners are cast overboard in a chain of human life being carelessly thrown away.

That’s it. Basic stuff. But Mel Gibson, who, despite his miserable personal reputation of late (which should not taint any judgement of his professional work), directs well, relying of a couple of key devices to add zing to his films.

He exploits every opportunity to tear at your heartstrings as great injustices are done upon lovely and innocent people. Now, if that was all there was too it we’d be left with a bit of a Spielberg weeper, but Mel being Mel, he’s whacked in an overload of the other tricks up his now famous sleeve – excessive gratuitous violence in all its arrow through the gut, hold a beating heart high, pulsing arterial wound glory.

It’s almost non stop, from the opening pig hunting sequence, on to Mel’s old favourite – the slow throat-slitting sequence of someone with powerful emotional ties to the hero by an evil bastard, thus providing a clear good vs evil motive for later grisly revenge. Through to the ritual sacrifice scenes (which I suspect may have been the original seed idea for the whole movie, as one night Mel read up on 'cut out a beating heart' Mayan rituals, and thought "Hey! I can work with this!") and the looong chase, which is pure Rambo: First Blood, as the hero whittles the chasers down, one by one, via various clever traps, heroic true grit, improbable good luck and tricky fightcraft.

The gore, combined with the adrenalin-charged chase sequence itself, tends to give little opportunity for the viewer to actually pause for contemplation. After a while, as one does in such graphically violent films, a sense of impassiveness overcomes you and the entertainment of the chase comes to the fore, to be properly appreciated.

The sum of Apocalypto’s parts add up to make it a decent bite of entertainment. None greater than the terrific cast, almost all virtually unknown Mexican actors – some even recruited from jungle communities. They were cast for their looks and athleticism, not pure acting skills.

It works very well, with a wonderful collection of faces we’re just not used to seeing in a typical homogenised Hollywood flick. From crusty but wise-as-the-hills elders, to evil high priests that just look so intensely and naturally sinister, to the hero 'Jaguar Paw', played by fresh faced and superbly athletic Rudy Youngblood (great name!), a gen-u-ine Comanche Indian whose previous day job was performing pow-wow dances for tourists at a reservation.

Add to this that the film is spoken entirely in the native Mayan language (bona fide elders on-set during production to make it so, we're assured), subtitled in English, and you’re quickly and effectively drawn into Apocalypto's intended world. This alone gives the film an entirely different air than if it were spoken in English, as well as making it more easily portable to the non-English speaking international market, as a coinicidental, we're sure, side benefit.

Where Mel missed a trick is taking better advantage of the rainforest location. There are all too few moments of natural splendour. No panoramic mountain shots, no mystical sunsets, no mist-filled valleys… it’s a bit like Predator - just a whole lot of leafy backdrop for people to run against, and be killed in. Given that the director of photography is Dean Semler (Dances With Wolves), that’s a brain-stumping oversight.

Dean almost makes up for it with the riveting chase sequence. It was all filmed on digital hand-held, and is worth the price of admission. And so it should be, being the backbone of the film. Most of Apocalypto is Jaguar Paw running, and you feel like you are running with him. Very rarely does the camera pause on a scene, it's all go go go and that creates a very cool excitement that will have you forgetting all about your popcorn and Coke.

Against this simple but exhilarating battle, man against men, there are half a dozen critical plot moments in the adventure where it seems Mel’s dug himself into a hole. Watching, you wonder just what sort of impossible miracle can feasibly prevent certain death for the hero when death seems certain.

For example, just how a doomed Jaguar Paw is going to escape when bound and held down at the top of a sacrificial temple, knife poised above his chest. James Bond or even Superman would have given up all hope. But thanks to a few spectacular and completely improbable turns of events, the rollercoaster continues.

There’s two or three like this that just leave you shaking your head at the utterly implausible unlikelihood of the ‘outs’ Mel uses.

Another curious directorial moment is when atop the sacrificial pyramid, a dozen-odd doomed men, bound and waiting a gut opening death, watch as one by one their mates are opened up, look on with only vague curiosity as the line moves forward. One would expect the impending victims to be in a state of convulsive fear, or at least a Tale of Twin Cities dignity. But no. Mel must have been on a tea break when they filmed that bit because all the actors look bored. A surprising missed opportunity for emotional pang, right there.

Given Mel's penchant for tapping into the dirty horrible 'shit their pants' fright innocent people face when looking down the barrel, this could/SHOULD have been the keystone of the film, but he missed it, so instead of having a clear rising crescendo, peaking, then culminating in a dramatic escape scene, it's just one more lone sequence of half-hearted suffering, amidst the rest, followed predictably by running away fast.

Instead of showing the face of the individuals, the humans, in the captivity of evil, queued up for a horrific death, facing a death that poignantly robs them of their right to a free and simple life, as the films setting so obviously begs, Mel instead spends the budget on heads rolling down the temple stairs and a pit of hundreds of headless bodies that our hero must later trample through (The Killing Fields, in another tribute, cheers).

Apocalypto isn’t a family movie, it’s certainly not a date movie, and sadly, it’s not much of a historical piece. It is a simple formulaic action chase movie.

The marketing is a bit wide of the mark. The poster art and trailer presents a confused message.

What it is, is a unique take on a simple old film recipe. It’s a thrilling ride, and shows good old Mel’s talents off well. It’s hard to tell if he’s actually slowly going off the rails, or, over time, is reaching deeper into himself to make films with raw, brutal, but thrilling storytelling.

Regardless, it’s an above average bit of entertainment. The cast is superb (at least a couple of the actors deserve awards) and it's worth your time. And if it piques any extra interest with you, or other film directors, in the untapped mine of material that are the ancient civilisations of the Americas, then it's done a half decent job.

Bottom line: It's worth your time. At a minimum it will satisfy with enough standout moments to leave you walking away with something to talk about.

It's full of dramatic heart pounding moments, that, if not perfectly realised, are enough to feed your hunger for the cost of a movie thrill.

To its credit, neither Apocalypto (nor Mel) leave you tantalised with the hope of a sequel in the end scene. There's an opening for that, if the theme takes off, but it's not an in-your-face plot-driven jangler. But, let's hope that the theme at least spawns more like it.

Conclusion: Not time wasted.