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Apocalypto
Apocalypto is Mel Gibson's eagerly awaited - or dreaded in my case - directorial follow-up to the abysmally nauseating Passion of the Christ, and although it's leagues better than that cancerous spleen of a movie, it's still pretty awful.
Apocalypto is thoroughly unpleasant to watch. Even the name is rubbish, it sounds like a superhero's arch-nemesis. Yet, thanks to the wonderfully weird variety of the general public, it is again garnering good ratings and reviews from other quarters, so there is a chance that you, gentle reader, may actually like it. Nevertheless, I can't bear to give it more than two, because it's shite. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: - some of the natives have their baps out, National Geographic style. To enjoy this film you should be: Mel Gibson's blind auntie.
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Your commentsThe comments printed here are not necessarily the views of Forwardcharm!
Oh dear, Gibson has made another movie, and has spent too long in the outback with no hat or sun cream and hence his brain has been twisted even further. As an action hero with others writing the script he's fine but before directing he should read the odd history book and stop using horror films as his intellectual base.
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Mel Gibson really should go back to acting. He was good at that. In the director's chair, however, he seems obsessed with
torture and suffering, making his films seriously unpleasant to watch. The majority of Apocalypto is a third-rate war
movie, disguised as a story about tribal humanity. Basically it's a tribute to pain, with lots of people doing nasty things
to each other. One tribe is good (all of them) and the other is bad (again, all of them, just like ze Chermans in countless
war propaganda pukefests). In terms of entertainment, I'd rather watch Anne Widdecombe treat her bunions than watch that
kind of thing, especially when Gibson insists on driving the violence home with such a sick voyeuristic thrust that it
makes the viewer seriously doubt his mental stability. I wouldn't let him look after my kids. And I don't even have any.
Then, just at the point when the bloodletting seems to be drawing to a close and the movie should be ending, it switches
pace and becomes a chase movie. Oh goody, so that's another 40 minutes to sit through then. Oh happy day.
It's as if movie-writing has gone back in time by twenty years. If you're anything like me, you'll be shouting at the screen
(at least in your head), "pick up the weapon! Hide you twat! Don't just stand there like a cocking lemon!" Yes, it's one
of those. There's barely enough thought in the screenplay to make a Daily Mail column inch, let alone a full-length
movie. And if, like me, you baulk when heroes escape by virtue of ludicrous coincidences, you'll practically vomit at
Apocalypto. One of them in particular, has to go down as one of the all time stupidest plot devices ever to be committed
to film (it's to do with the sun, you'll know it when you see it - though you won't believe they seriously expect us to
swallow it).
The actors are all unknowns and, to be fair, they do a fine job. The sense of a living, sprawling jungle is reasonably
effective and there isn't as much confusion between the characters as I would've expected. The fact that there isn't a
single word of English spoken - they're all speaking Yucatec so it's subtitled - doesn't help with
keeping track of things, but as they're all talking bollocks it doesn't really make much difference. The real-life Mayans
are apparently up in arms about it (I'm sure Gibson stirred them up on purpose) because they object to being portrayed as
savages, which is odd, because the impression I got was that they were all rather westernised in the movie. Their
lifestyle just didn't feel raw and primitive enough to be convincing as the ancient jungle-dwellers they're supposed to be.
