I should have taken a warning from the publicity blurb for Apocalypto (2006) ! It is advertised as Mel Gibson's Apocalypto rather than just "Apocalpto", as if the film itself needed Gibson to help sell it to the general public, which of course it does. The story of how the baddie Mayans (ugly brutes !) take poor simple forest Indian villagers ( Environmental heros) prisoner to satisfy their angry gods is a thinly veiled political allegory about civilisations, (especially the USA), in decline. It is also quite simply a chase movie in the Les Misérables tradition, and a violent and often disturbing one at that. Gibson directs the action sequences deftly, but we have seen all this before in so many ways!- At one point the council estate looking hero Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), gallops through the jungle pursued ad nauseum by the Mayan psychopaths, I found myself wishing for him to end it all by jumping over the obligatory waterfall. I almost laughed when he did just that! Many of the other action set pieces are quite breathtaking and the cinematography is stunning ! but everyone looks pierced to death and all a bit dirty for my liking.
The Last of the Mohicans did it all so much better.
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