average rating
 | When his idyllic existence is brutally disrupted by an invading force, a man is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear where a harrowing end awaits him. read more.
Starring Dalia Hernandez, Mayra Serbulo, Raoul Trujillo and Rudy Youngblood, directed by Mel Gibson.
Released 11 June 2007.
Icon Home Entertainment. PAL.
Run Time 138 minutes. Classification  rrp £19.99. Our best price £4.00 |
 |
| |
|
| |
Retrieving prices, please wait ...
If you can't see any prices after a few seconds, click here
| "Apocalypto": a heart stopping mythic action-adventure set against the turbulent end times of the once great Mayan civilization. When his idyllic existence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, a man is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.
.. read more. |
| Kashif Ahmed, 23 Jun 2007 |
|
| Mel Gibson's 'Apocalypto' opens with a quote by the late American author & intellectual William H. Durant, which says: "A great civilisation is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within". And irrespective of what one may think of Gibson's personal beliefs, there's no denying that the 'Lethal Weapon' star is one of the most gifted actor/directors of his generation and 'Apocalypto', his forth go behind the camera and first film since controversial religious picture 'The Passion Of The Christ', is nothing less than a Mayan language masterpiece. Set just before the fall of the great Central American civilisation, 'Apocalypto' works as both an epic, occasionally ultraviolet, political allegory for our times, and as a straightforward action-adventure film. A cast of Native American, American Indian and Yucatan actors speaking in the Mayan mother tongue, bring Gibson and Safinia's well researched script to life in the time honoured tradition of cinéma vérité: creating an admirable level of authenticity, which is slightly undermined by the intentional use of modern, sometimes colloquial, subtitles.
'Apocalypto', from the Greek meaning to start anew, follows the journey of young Mayan warrior Jaguar Paw (a good performance by Rudy Youngblood): kidnapped from his village by a marauding, militarily powerful clan of pro-monarchist Mayans, Jaguar Paw, along with all adult males from his tribe, is put on a rendition march to the infamous temple pyramids; where he's to be ritually executed. Divine intervention helps our hero escape and, along with a handful of prisoners, make a desperate dash for home with his captors in hot pursuit. It's a simple but effective story that allows Gibson plenty of room for manoeuvre before Jaguar Paw's escape, and the film's switch from drama to action. You'll marvel at the visually impressive, breathtaking scenes on the temple pyramid; as hapless, soon-to-be-scarified Mayan youths are painted and marched up to its ceremonial alter. Gibson draws parallels between the irrational practice of human sacrifice to appease false gods, to the practice of sending indoctrinated, naïve or disadvantaged youths to invade Iraq. Hence making them human sacrifices for an inherently corrupt economic order / socio-political infrastructure built upon delusion and greed, or as a true believer like Mel might see it, sacrifice to honour the false god mammon (i.e. money): "...What's human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?" said Gibson at a post-preview junket in 2006. But for all its scope and grandeur, it's the little details and gallows humour which makes this film stand out: the proud Mayan queen tugging her dress away from an annoying kid seconds after a bloody beheading. The naturalistic depiction of Mayan village life, Soanzo leaf remedy and the shifty looking high priest, perhaps a sly dig at Zionism's evangelical TV preachers who, like the Mayan cleric, feign piety to placate the masses with Uriah Heap-esque platitudes, and nonsensical, right-wing rhetoric.
One of the most thought provoking scenes occurs around the campfire with a Mayan elder telling a story, which accurately summarises all that's wrong with the world as it was then, and as it still is today. Apocalypto's second half sees our hero on a frantic trek through the South American jungle, and its here that Gibson shows us that he's remembered a thing or two on how to film a good chase in all those years working with Richard Donner (whose car chase in 'Lethal Weapon 4' is one of the best, and most underrated, stunts in Hollywood history). And since this 'Predator'-esque sequence takes up a lot of screen time, Gibson has to ratchet up the tension and make the sudden bursts of violence look all the more flamboyant and, some may argue, over-the-top. The fluidity of Apocalypto's chase sequence is aided by Gibson's use of Spydercam in conjunction with the new and improved Geneses HD-SDI camera, which, in terms of reducing artifaction and lag, is now on a par with the Sony HD+8 Digital. I believe the evolution of digital moviemaking took as great a leap forward with this film, as it did with 'Collateral' (2004) and will have old school cynics and 35mm aficionados marvelling at the clarity, depth-of-field and versatility of this new medium, which, at long last, seems to formed a stylistic, symbiotic union with its ancestor.
Some historians claim this movie was disrespectful to Mayan culture: portraying them as maniacal savages, and to an extent, its a valid criticism, however, this picture's aim was to show the self-inflicted degradation of a once celebrated and advanced civilisation. A people, as W. Durant noted, who were destroyed from within through decadence and inequity, before they were conquered from without, though I would've liked to have seen an acknowledgement of the fact that those who ultimately conquered the Mayan 'savage' had little to offer but a new and deadlier form of savagery. Mel Gibson has always been one of my favourite actors, and now, I can say with some confidence; that he's also one of my favourite filmmakers: 'Apocalypto' is a great achievement in film, with beautiful cinematography, suspenseful, satisfying and another undisputed triumph in Gibson's directorial career. This Disc features a short making of, an interesting deleted scene and an excellent commentary by the man himself. My hats off to The Man, The Legend, The Gibson: What a guy!
|
| |
|
