Apocalypto
Let's start with the basics: Apocalypto isn't a history lesson; it's an action movie, and a damn good one at that. Almost the entire second half of the movie, in fact, could go down as one of the greatest chase sequences ever filmed. No cars, no spaceships, no guns—just pure adrenaline.
For the chase to have the punch it does, however, the stakes have to be high and purposeful, and that's where Mel Gibson and co-writer Farhad Safinia get off to a great start, establishing a universal sense of community and family among a tribe of humble, assenting people who love their children, play practical jokes on each other and live in harmony with the jungle around them.
When Mayan soldiers arrive to plunder their village and capture subjects for human sacrifice (to appease the gods and save their crumbling empire), the bond between the audience and these meek, resilient people is unbreakable, even in the face of customs and traditions far different from our own.
Our bond is especially strong with Jaguar Paw, a young hunter with a wife and son and a baby on the way. When the village is attacked, Jaguar hides his toddler son and pregnant wife and leaves them to fight the Mayan soldiers and defend his friends and neighbors. He is captured along with dozens of others and toted off to the Mayan capital and a land of wonder and horror the likes of which none of them have ever imagined.
The long and short of it is this: A twist of fate leads to Jaguar's escape and the chase is on. Hunted by almost a dozen skilled warriors, Jaguar uses his familiarity with the jungle to turn the table on his metropolitan pursuers and become the hunter in a desperate effort to reach his family before Mother Nature makes his quest futile.
Not being as up on my Yucatec as perhaps I should, it seems nonetheless that the cast of unknowns and first-timers employed by Gibson performs more than admirably, given the difficult task of acting for the first time in a language hardly anyone speaks anymore, no doubt a testament to their director's previous career as an actor of some note.
While the film's level of bloodshed has been somewhat overblown in the press, make no mistake—Apocalypto is an exceptionally violent movie. The action bristles with an intensity unlike anything to hit the silver screen in quite some time. Say what you will about his reported religious fervor and accompanying hypocrisies, but Mel Gibson's talent behind the camera is simply undeniable.
But I digress.
While Apocalypto makes no illusions about its adventure pedigree, neither does it apologize for having more to say than the typical action movie. By the time the chase is over and a certain other empire arrives, Gibson's underlying theme of the universality of people returns. It doesn't matter what part of the world we come from or what our religious customs may be, we're all basically the same and our misguided ambitions often get the best of us.