'Apocalypto' Is More 'Mad Max' Than Mayan

Fox News ^ | December 01, 2006 | Roger Friedman

[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.

...

"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.

[wodinoneeye]

"---What it is, Gibson says, is the story of a civilization in transition, as the Mayans 500 years ago fought among themselves until visitors from Europe arrived by ship and spelled their doom. ---

This is complete misinformation. Mayan civilization was gone long before Europeans happened along."


They actually destroyed themselves as a civilization long before the Europeans arrived. The Spanish actually left them alone because they didnt have any gold or silver and the jungles had reclaimed so much of the land (as well as the area being referred to as 'the whitemans graveyard' because of the diseases that killed of settlers so fast and so thoroughly).

[rintense]

I'm just waiting for LaRaza to say the film is racist.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Why watch an intensely evil people, practicing evil for two hours? Why?

That's what I ask myself every time I turn on C-SPAN. ;)

[murphE]

The Mayans were blood thirsty savages. Maybe the most violent 'culture' in human history and worse than those evil Romans.

Oh you're just viewing them through your biased Western cultural lens - who are you to judge? Everyone knows that it was the Church and the Spanish that were truly evil in trying to impose Christianity on them. / sarcasm

[AmericaUnited]

That was funny!

[OSHA]

why the Mayans all mysteriously vanished without a trace was because God wiped them out for practicing human sacrifice

They did not vanish, they still exist today. Visit the Yucatan and you will see many people who look like they stepped out of the Mayan carvings.

At the time of the Spanish conquest the large Mayan city states such as Chichén Itzá had fallen into ruin but the Maya were still there living in isolated villages. They fought the Spanish vigorously (more so than the Incas) and might have driven them out except for the devastation of European diseases.

[JCEccles]

Mel Gibson "realism" is to history what pornography is to sex.

His movies are gore-filled spectacles of the same kind and quality as the gladiator fights and Christian sacrifices to wild beasts that were carried out in the Roman Colosseum and arenas in the late-decay stages of the Roman Empire.

Mel Gibson has been working hard to debase and degrade the human character in his own special way.

[Vaquero]

thats my argument....I agree with you.

[Vaquero]

it depends on how it is presented....I will see for myself. I have enjoyed all of Mel's films that he directed so far(including 'The Passion Of The Christ'), so I will give Gibson the benefit of the doubt, before I give it to this critic.

[Tribune7]

Mayan Sacrifice

[robertpaulsen]

"thats my argument....I agree with you."

Yes, I know. I was agreeing with you. Sheesh. We sound like something from Dr. Strangelove:

"I'm sorry too, Dimitri. I'm very sorry. Alright! You're sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri. Don't say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we're both sorry, alright? Alright."

[Tribune7]

So by your criteria, someone making a film showing Nazi's torturing people, is ok, because it's REAL HISTORY.

I would say that someone making a film about the Nazis and describing what Mengele did and showing what occurred in the camps would be OK and appropriate and important and right.

and REAL HISTORY.

[beezdotcom]

And I've had enough of his interviews where he speaks in the third person.

"Bob Dole thinks that Bob Dole should sue Mel Gibson for violating Bob Dole's patent on speaking about himself in the third person." --Bob Dole

[AmericaUnited]

You're missing the point. People have made those films, but they didn't show excruciatingly detailed torture scenes for hours.

[Miss Marple]

As I told you a few days ago, the PG13 previews were too much for me! Every Indian is creepy looking, multiple piercings, filed teeth, weirdo hair, etc. Constant drumbeats and showings of the beginnings of sacrifice (but it cuts the film before that is shown) which I was sure were in gory detail in the actual film.

I think Gibson falls under the PJ-Comix description of FLAT OUT NUTS and I am done with him, too.

In fact, I am glad I didn't ever steel myself to see "The Passion of Christ." I firmly believe he marketed it in order to get a lot of people to watch something violent, and got his jollies thinking about all of those naive people being forced to watch it.

FLAT OUT NUTS.

[finnigan2]

It's still early days for a review of this film so rottentomatoes.com has only two official reviews posted and both of them gave the movie a thumbs up.
Friedman is probably mad at Gibson for his drunken Jewish rant and has been waiting to pay him back for the success of that other " bloody, torture fest", The Passion of the Christ.
The thought that Hollywood reviewers would find a movie objectionable on the grounds that it was too cruel or bloody is a joke. It's never bothered them before.

[My Favorite Headache]

LOL...don't be silly...SILLY. The "Academy" will never give him another award...period. The shunning of The Passion of The Christ was the biggest slap in film history.

This will be no different.

[Kirkwood]

It's rated R for violence. Guess some people can't read and will think it's a movie for kids.

[NavyCanDo]

"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."

The same reviewer probably loved the Kill Bill movies. Now those were violence just for the point of entertainment movies.

[finnigan2]

"And I've had enough of his interviews where he speaks in the third person."

- Finnigan like your point of view. Finnigan is happy. He couldn't agree more.