ArnoldFilm Review: Apocalypto: **
dir: Mel Gibson
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What appears to be Braveheart in Mexico, with a stuffed jaguar, turns to be a much smaller, more fragile film. Mel Gibson seems to have, at least initially, found a story that takes a major period of Latin history and made a small, intriguing film. That’s how I felt after the first half hour. Then he brings in elements of Predator, Evil Dead and the plot-negating ending of an M. Night Shamalyan film. There is a real lack of consistency in the film. I could say many blanket statements that would need an amendment at the end so I could maintain my dignity. An example may illuminate the watery oil consistency of the film. I say: the film is beautifully shot, except for that part where the main character is hunted through the woods like Predator, when Gibson tries to get stylized, hip and fresh and comes off like an old man consulting a manual on how to raise the tension in a film. Or I could say: The acting is pretty good for non-actors, except for the part with the fake jaguar, which, I hate to include any disclosure of events from the film, but the jaguar attack is like something from Army of Darkness, It is clearly a doll and not a jaguar and the camera just keeps lingering over the lifeless eye of the jaguar. My ten-year-old brother shot an attack sequence a lot like that on my parents VHS camcorder. He held the leg of the doll that wasn’t on screen and shook it over his friends face. Basically what happens in Apocalypto.
The film loses all humanistic qualities by the end. Everything redeemable about the film is thrown out the window as the film descends into the classic world of camp films. In a few years, when film snobs decide to get over Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitism and watch this, it could easily be a campy midnight classic. The film ultimately fails, while keeping you on the edge of your seat wondering when it will whirlpool into crap. Keep waiting, it will.
