Apocalypto (2006)

Apocalypto (2006)

[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.