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Critics Consensus: Apocalypto is a brilliantly filmed, if mercilessly bloody, examination of a once great civilization.
Critic Consensus: Apocalypto is a brilliantly filmed, if mercilessly bloody, examination of a once great civilization.
All Critics (197) | Top Critics (51) | Fresh (129) | Rotten (68) | DVD (22)
Apocalypto demonstrates two things: that Mel Gibson is a hell of a filmmaker and that his imaginative world borders on the Neanderthal.
Pathologically brilliant. It is bizarre, stomach-turningly violent and frequently inspired.
This is by no means a boring film, then, but it is a grotesque one, and that brings it pretty close to camp.
As a piece of filmmaking it's certainly strong enough to restore his commercial viability. Whether that's to the good is another question entirely.
[Gibson] has learned how to tell a tale, and to raise a pulse in the telling. You have to admire that basic gift, uncommon as it is in Hollywood these days, though equally you have to ask what obsessions goad it on.
Mel Gibson is a real artist as a director.
There is something different in Gibson's application of violence. The objections seem to lie not just in Gibson's realistic portrayal of cruelty but in the judgment he brings to it.
A quite exciting spectacle based on a racist version of indigenous history, one in which the genocidal conquistadors are the New World's liberators.
Apocalypto isn't simply an effective movie, but an immensely powerful one: a benchmark and a foresight seemingly all rolled into one.
Damn if the movie, through Mel's sheer determination, doesn't almost turn from a fight-n-flight gore fest into a moving meditation on a civilisation in the throes of decline. Almost.
Ignore Apocalypto's symbolic hubbub and instead view it for Gibson's perverse sense of entertainment. His passionate spectacle of human destruction and doom packs a terrific visceral punch.
Shot with digital camera on location in Mexico, Mel Gibson has created a visually stunning action/adventure epic that although has divided many with its historical accuracy, has spared no expense in bringing life to a world before European colonization.
If the attraction of films is immersion into another reality, this bad boy fills the bill and then some, on steroids. We go to the heart of the South American jungle at the start of the decline of the Mayan civilization, just before the arrival of invading Europeans, and Mel Gibson's evocation of the times puts to shame nearly every historical epic before, very nearly the history lesson of teachers' dreams, and then there's the story of a simple family man trying to survive in a violent world. Gibson may well be the D.W. Griffith of his time, emboding sensational film making and bad politics simultaneously ... but so what? Hollywood needs to forgive him. I have.
Super Reviewer
Rent this -- don't buy it. That way you'll feel less digusted with yourself for seeing a Mel Gibson film. Otherwise, it's excellent.
[img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img] I was surprised at how much this film has been forgotten. Apocalypto is Mel Gibson's best film. It doesn't look like much at first glance because the trailer is not remotely interesting, and quite dull. But it's actually filled with violence and a great deal of thrills and shocks. It's filmed beautifully, like Passion Of The Christ but has a clearer meaning and a more developed hero. Everything about it is more engaging, affectionate and ironically, more passionate. The environments and set pieces are positively breathtaking and the costume design is absolutely marvelous. I really liked Passion Of The Christ for a lot of reasons but Apocalypto, is Gibson's masterpiece.
Although slow and sometimes difficult to understand, this is truly a visual masterpiece with so many brilliant performances it's hard to choose who to credit first. A fantastic voyage of a story which integrates you with these people and allows you to feel part of the gang; but then that's all spoiled by the ending which confuses my sense of time. At first it seems to be of the Mayan era but then the ships come along with a completely different period of clothing. I'm not sure if this was intentional to show that such barbarism was still in full swing in 'modern' times or to just be annoying. Good film though.
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