Jan 8, 2007 by
famron
★★★★☆ Went to Apocalypto on Friday night, hadn’t really read the reviews, but there wasn’t much else in the cinema so we gave it a shot. Fairly typical “ethnic” Mel Gibson film, with a struggle of good versus evil.
It starts with a chase, a tapir* being pursued through the forest by a group of Mayan hunters. After the kill we see life in their settlement, the extended family group with all its joking and warmth. Early the next morning that peace is shattered, when a group of marauding slavers bring destruction and death to the village. Many are killed and the others are captured and trussed up for a march through the jungle to the city, including “our hero” Jaguar’s Paw”, played by Rudy Youngblood, who in fairness is a fine thing – very expressive eyes.
They eventually arrive at the Mayan city, which is ridden with disease, crops are dying in the fields and the aristocrats have the dead eyes of junkies - the entire society is like an over-ripe fruit rotting from within. (The film could win an Oscar based on the sets and costumes of those scenes alone.) Ritualistic decapitation is the order of the day – gory and brutal. But luckily, Jaguar’s Paw is spared that fate because of a fortuitous solar eclipse.
And then begins the chase back through the jungle – our injured hero being hunted by a group of slavers. It’s not just his own life that’s at stake, but his pregnant wife and son were hidden during the attack on the village, so he’s racing to save them. The pursuit is exhilarating, time and again you reckon he’s a goner, but he manages to survive each situation. Does he make it? Can he save his wife and son? Watch the film.
*Tapir – related to the horse and rhino. I always knew the animal cards I collected as a child would come in handy some day.
0.3
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