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You have to give it up for Mel Gibson. It\u2019s not many Hollywood heavyweights who would set an action thriller in an Ancient Mayan civilization, and actually have his characters speak ancient Mayan. Only in Hollywood would we have polished young actors speak English in such a setting, but what Gibson has done is throw down all xenophobic and sensationalistic urges, and given us a film that actually sticks true to the concept he puts forth. And it also helps that \u201cApocalypto\u201d is a genuinely exciting and enthralling action adventure, too. Mel Gibson has really become a director of his own class, a man who tells the stories he wants to tell, in spite of the backlash he receives. All in all \u201cApocalypto\u201d is probably Gibson\u2019s best film to date, because it\u2019s almost free of any of Hollywood\u2019s tainting.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t say Gibson is a rebel who thinks outside the box, as was witnessed by \u201cPassion of the Christ,\u201d but the man can direct an excellent visually spectacular action thriller. A healthy mixture of \u201cLogan\u2019s Run,\u201d and my favorite short story of all time \u201cThe Most Dangerous Game,\u201d Gibson\u2019s epic action film is the story of young Jaguar Paw, a young hunter of his tribe who lives the ideal life of a man his age. He has an eldest son, a child coming, and he has a wife he adores. But all of that is changed when after a violent omen his peaceful village is disrupted by merciless invaders who proceed to destroy everything he loves, including his cohorts. He\u2019s captured and taken to the ancient Mayan empire, where must now attempt escape and rescue his pregnant wife and son who he hid back in his village deep in a hole where they await. The people of the city which Jaguar Paw is taken are filled with sadness and desperation.<\/p>\n
As all empires, the Mayans find themselves at the end of their ropes, with their civilization enduring plagues and famine, while their people cling to the belief that sacrifice of humans will bring them good fortune. Clutching to false hope, they look to the sky and follow omens as they cheer with the ripping of every beating heart for the sacrifice of their god at the false promise of success, and yet it\u2019s clear it\u2019s not to come. Jaguar Paw, played with great skill by Rudy Youngblood, even sees that their civilization is at an end, as he gapes in horror at the rituals and traces of a society who are struggling to survive. His one hope that everything will be fine is returning to his wife and children, and he learns from this what his father had always encouraged: that he be strong and fearless in his pursuits.<\/p>\n
The power of family drives this young warrior to his coming of age, and Gibson provides some utterly brilliant sequences of savagery and pain, along with sweeping action scenes, and hand to hand battles that are pulled off with a keen eye, and a glorious concept. Unlike \u201cPassion,\u201d Gibson\u2019s violent purports to show the desperation of a society and the effects of these battles on the children, all of whom are left to suffer crying, and sitting at their parent\u2019s bodies, all for the empty pursuit of a miracle that will never come to pass. The omen that is fulfilled, along with the promise of the end of civilization unfolds with a stunning twist that Gibson delivers with great competence. In the end though, \u201cApocalypto\u201d is less about a man fighting for his family, and more about a civilization fighting for survival at every cost, unaware of what fate has in store for them that is much frightening. Gibson proves his prowess as a director further with an original and utterly fantastic thriller set in a vicious world. With great performances, a gripping story, and spectacular visuals, “Apocalypto” is another notch in Gibson’s belt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You have to give it up for Mel Gibson. It\u2019s not many Hollywood heavyweights who would set an action thriller in an Ancient Mayan civilization, and actually have his characters speak ancient Mayan. Only in Hollywood would we have polished young actors speak English in such a setting, but what Gibson has done is throw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[50,58,71,302,367,651,1087],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-a","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-drama","tag-foreign","tag-mel-gibson","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}