Apocalypto

Though I had no interest in the subject, I took a risk and just came back from seeing Mel Gibson's new flick and it is an exciting adventure which engages from the start with touches of humor that allow us to relate to the characters rather than hold them at a distance.

The accusation that it portrays the people unfairly has no merit. Both sides of human nature doubtless existed in each culture from the start. Look at The Fast Runner - a movie about a much smaller aboriginal community in which we see no matter how small your clan is someone will be a criminal and all soap opera elements will be represented.

Rudy Youngblood especially stands out here as the hero. Reading the subtitles will add comic relief to your screening, but the story itself plays visually. Again more is made of the violence than there should be. There is violence but it moves the story along and generates suspense.

I would give it a ten except that I understand IMDb sometimes discounts the tens and ones. Even if you had political reasons you did not like The Passion - or Braveheart for that matter - if you like a good motion picture Apocalypto is a good bet.

This film proves that the crazy guy Mel Gibson is a genius of sorts. With Apocalypto, Mel Gibson has proven it's possible to create a compelling action/adventure film in almost any setting. Gibson's theme is that all great civilizations fail when they begin to rot from the inside. Over the next 2 1/4 hours, he provides glimpses into the degeneracy of the Mayan society on the eve of its encounter with the Spanish conquistadores. However, Apocalypto is not a political tract or a dissertation about why the Mayan age came to an end. Instead, it's a high-octane adventure that concludes with one of the most intense extended chase sequences in recent movie history.

Apocalypto is probably one of the ten best movies of the year, a compelling action movie with not only adrenaline, but also brains and heart. Its portrayal of the Mayan culture -- including its strange dress, hair styles, costumes, tattoos, body piercing, and decorative scars, as well as its industry, class system, cities, warfare, weapons, myth, and religion -- provide a bizarre and fascinating anthropological backdrop for what is, at its heart, a solid, thrilling, fast paced old fashioned struggle between good guys and bad guys. The movie does have a lot of violence. But the violence is woven into a story with characters we care about. It is a realistic part of the culture being described. And it is not shown in a hyper gruesome manner, as is much of movie violence today. Thus, I found it much less offensive than many reviews had led me to believe I would. Unlike in some movies, I found the subtitles in Apocalypto so easy to read that most of time I forgot I was reading them. If anything the strange language only adds to the tone of exotic strangeness that pervades this unusually good and thrilling movie.

Epic. I fell in love with all the main characters. This movie is so exciting you just can't turn away . Dramatic, exciting, emotional, beautiful story of good versing evil. Even though the story involves the natives of Central America circa 1511 there is a moral implication than can be applied to modern America. The Mayan Empirical governing body had become so vile and corrupt that it's collapse was inevitable. Tribes and villagers who wanted to live solitary and peaceful lives were being attacked by the Mayans. The story is just amazing.

The effort and attention to detail in the production is evident when you watch the film. Just the authenticity of the film's location, costumes, weaponry and actors is worth the ticket price. Then you watch the rest of the film, and it simply blows you away. Mel Gibson created a masterpiece. The only flaws are the critics who helped in denying him and the film - the accolades that they rightly deserved.