Remember when Mel Gibson was cool? I guess it depends on how old you are. Everyone over 20 raise you hand. Damn, now I feel old. Anyway, back in the day, Mel Gibson was a cool guy that starred in a bunch of kick-ass films like Mad Max and Lethal Weapon (the first one - the rest were a waste of video tape). But now, he's just some old racist making movies that no one can understand:
And when I say that no one can understand Apocalypto, I mean it literally. You see, in his infinite wisdom, Mr. Gibson decided that the film should be performed in a dead Mayan language. I'm not really sure which one. I'd Google it, but honestly, does it really matter? Suffice it to say, you will be reading if you watch this movie. And reading is for suckers.
What was the point of having all the dialogue be in ancient Mayan? If you ask Mel, I'm sure he'd tell you that it's supposed to bring you deeper into the story and make you feel like you're living as part of the tribe. But in reality, I'm sure it's just a grandiose attempt to both generate hype for the movie, and make it feel more historically accurate than it really is. It certainly worked on the first part.
As for the plot, the story revolves around a young man in the tribe named Jaguar Paw. Hmm, I guess it's better than Frog Scrotum. Anyway, the tribe is attacked, a bunch of his friends are killed, and he a few others are taken prisoner. Eventually, they're brought to a temple to be sacrificed to some god that no one has ever heard of (let's say Kianto, just for the hell of it), and Jag must escape to save his wife and son. Oh yeah, they got trapped in a well at some point. I wonder if her name was Jessica...
From a purely cinematic standpoint, this movie isn't terrible. There are some cool action scenes, and the temple sequence borders on "epic". But all in all, it's not enough to make up for the fact that this movie pretends to teach you something about ancient times, as well as pass on a metaphor about today's society. And I don't need to learn anything when I'm watching a movie. That's my brain turned off time.
If you're really looking to waste some money, there's even a Blu-Ray version of this flick available. I'm sure it's very pretty, but meh. And I realize this is against the nature of this feature, but if you're looking for a new release to spend your money on this week, might I suggest Season 3 of Airwolf?
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