Posted on 12/01/2006 3:38:06 AM PST by AmericaUnited
'Apocalypto' Is More 'Mad Max' Than Mayan
With the subtlety of several thousand flying mallets and arrows, here comes Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto," a two hour plus torture-fest so violent that women and children will be headed to the doors faster than you can say "duck" when the film opens on Dec. 8th.
Indeed, 'Apocalypto' is the most violent movie Disney has ever released, with so much blood spurting out of orifices that even Martin Scorsese would blush. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to see heads and hearts removed without anesthesia, then this is the movie for you. "Grey's Anatomy" it is not.
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"Apocalypto" surpasses "The Passion" in every way as a movie about pain, flagellation and wounding. The grotesqueries are almost numbing, and at some point they become laughable. But all the while, you're thinking, what's the point here? If "Apocalypto" was supposed to be about that transitional civilization, where is it? After two hours and several minutes of squirming and covering eyes, you start to think that "Apocalypto" exists just to show violence for itself. The point is lost.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I'll have to wait and see on whether to watch it or not.
However, the violence does not terribly surprise me. The Mayans were a very brutal race. In fact, the guy who was the head of my college community group feels that the reason why the Mayans all mysteriously vanished without a trace was because God wiped them out for practicing human sacrifice.
I know nothing about this movie. When I saw it was about the Mayans, I thought, "Oh no, the noble Indian faces the evil Western European Spaniards." But from what I am reading here, perhaps it is not so one-dimensional. I will wait and see.
The movie should do quite well.
Indeed they were. Above is one of the many friezes surrounding the "ball court" at Chitzen Itza. Just above and to the right of the turf is one of the "ball players" being decapitated while on bended knee. Above from the left corner of the turf is his head. It's speculated that the losing (or maybe the winning) team was dispatched right there on the field at the conclusion of the ball game as a sacrifice to the gods or the king or something else.
You might be wrong that that "Hollywood would love for Gibson to fail, and they'll do anything to hasten it." They also LOVE VIOLENT MOVIES and BLOODBATHS as long as they're not religious.
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Quote from PETER TRAVERS at Rolling Stone....
""This being Gibson, there's more to the film than the rush. It's impossible not to see parallels to our own cultured civilization, one that knowingly destroys its environment and sends troops to Iraq as human sacrifices.""
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/9387680/review/12626008/apocalypto?source=movie_reviews_rssfeed
Maybe he'll do a movie on MS-13 next.
I agree, the man is seriously mentally ill. Sure the Mayans were a violent lot. But they also spent an immense amount of time building their magnificent cities, with all that hieroglyphic writing carved in the stones, developed that beautiful and complex calendar, etc. I wonder how much time Gibson's movie devotes to that sort of thing. Not much, I'd guess, since his sick mind is drawn to anger and violence.
Of course, "Apocalypto" arrives with a lot of baggage. Gibson — an admitted alcoholic who denies being Anti-Semitic despite evidence to the contrary — is kind of a marked man.
What part of the review related to the blood/gore, intensity and amount, do you think is wrong?
that would be perceived anti-semitism......
The thing about Gibson is that he picks subjects for his movies and then decides to portray them realistically.
How refreshing. I am so sick of movies "based on" historic figures and events that are so twisted you can't recognize them.
I guess we need to have Disney animate them ala Pocahontas for the "real" story. Show what peace-loving environmentalist New Agers they were.
I have several grandchildren adopted from Guatemala and have been down to Tikal to see the ruins. The Mayans were not a bunch of boy scouts, that's for sure. They were brilliant and violent. I intended to see this movie, but now it sounds like my wife won't come with me and unless I can get my son-in-law to go, I may be waiting until it comes out on cable.
Maybe by that same mechanism Gibson's movie career will vanish witout a trace.
One can hope.
I would expect the movie disturbs the liberal meme of the noble and peaceful American aboriginals.
True, but that's my point! That's why Gibson chose to do a whole movie about them. There's something mentally unbalanced upstairs.
Maybe so, but it is good that an accurate depiction is being made. Maybe the idea that the new world was Disneyland until the evil Europeans arrived will take a hit.
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