First, I'd like to apologize to all my Jewish friends for buying a ticket to this. I really can't stand Gibson as a human being but curiousity got the better of me and so I went.
The movie succeeds very well as rip-off of the brilliant action movie Predator but fails miserably as a history lesson. He does the same thing here he does with Passion; he shows us lots of gore and atrocities committed by people in interesting costumes in a time period other than our own. No explanations, no reference, no history, just violent act upon violent act.
I felt The Passion was the greatest snuff film ever made and Apocalypto is a perfect sequel to that. More non-history dressed up as history.
I find it fascinating that in both movies Mel seems to be attacking communities for their addictions to blood and violence and yet both Apocalypto and Passion revel in gore at evey turn. Every time someone got their heart torn out on screen the frat boy sitting behind me said to his date,"that's awesome!"
EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME! "That's awesome!"
I wanted to scream. "No it's not!!! A person just had their heart torn out. It's NOT awesome!" But I suspect the stupid frat boy was responding exactly the way Mel wanted him to respond. Or maybe Mel's so clever that he figures by producing that blood-lust response he's subliminally spreading his message even more. Maybe the stupid frat boy acts as a sort of unknowing narrator on behalf af Mel. Maybe instead of watching the film we're supposed to watch the audience and as they cheer each beheading we're supoosed to look at each other and repeat the quotation at the beginning film:
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within."
Wow, maybe Mel really is a genius!
