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Reviews Counted:182
Fresh:117
Rotten:65
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: Apocalypto is a brilliantly filmed, if mercilessly bloody, examination of a once great civilization.
Theatrical Release:05-01-2007
Synopsis: Mel Gibson (BRAVEHEART, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST) tackles the downfall of Mayan civilization in his latest turn as writer/director. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) and his fellow villagers lead a... [More]
Starring: Dalia Hernandez, Mayra Serbulo, Gerardo Taracena, Raoul Trujillo
Director: Mel Gibson
Gibson's ancient Mayan version of The Most Dangerous Game played with clubs and spears ... While Gibson and Farhad Safinia's script begins as an anthropological saga, it brutally evolves into a Darwinian gospel according to Mel.
[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.
Say what you want about Mel Gibson, but that sadomasochistic anti-Semite knows how to shoot a movie.
Brutal, compelling and utterly convincing, "Apocalypto" is an adventure that stuns, overwhelms and, above all, entertains.
Think what you want of Gibson as a person, but when it comes to making action movies, he knows what he's doing.
The combination of story, action, excellent costume and makeup and solid performances by the hitherto unknown cast makes for a film that will have broad appeal.
By the end, there's nothing to grab onto except spare limbs and innards.
It's unlike any other movie to reach theaters this year and, because it is as visual an experience as it is visceral, it is best seen on a large screen.
...beautifully rendered and convincingly exciting.
As an action piece, Mel Gibson's violent, subtitled Mayan epic is engrossing, but it lacks a real emotional hook.
None of us can completely resist the spectacle of a disturbed guy -- who used to just be a movie star -- projecting his own violent fantasies in public and repeatedly enacting his own crucifixion. Let's not pretend there's anything healthy about it.
Think of it as kind of like "Hercules and Xena" done with Indians.
He can't keep his mouth shut when he has too much tequila, but dammit, this man can tell a story on film.
If, as a filmmaker, the obviously soul-stricken former movie star is an unabashed red-meat primitivist, he's also become an undeniably polished one.
By the end I felt sure it was the most obsessively, graphically violent film I'd ever seen, but equally sure that Apocalypto is a visionary work with its own wild integrity. And absolutely, positively convinced that seeing it once is enough.
It's a mesmerizing vision of the past refracted through the dark obsessions of the present.
Gibson has delivered an impeccably crafted action-adventure that starts fast and never lets up.
Whatever you may think about Gibson the man, Apocalypto shows he's determined to lay all his art and sweat and blood up there on the screen.
By now, it's fair to say that Mel Gibson does not make boring movies. He does, however, make movies that make you a little worried about him.
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